George Peabody: A Biography (review)

BOOK REVIEWS359 graduates liked his lectures, eccentric manners, and failure to challenge their southern assumptions, the reader is inclined to agree. Bertram Wyatt Brown Case Western Reserve University George Peabody: A Biography. By Franklin Parker. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1971. Pp. x, 233. $8.95.) Franklin Parker, professor of education at West Virginia University, has produced a biography of the international merchant, financier and philanthropist, George Peabody, which partially fills the void left by Phebe Ann Hanaford's 1870 study. In 187 pages and twenty-four brief chapters, the reader learns many facts but few insights about Peabody 's career. Originally from Danvers, Massachusetts, Peabody was self-supporting at seventeen, and by twenty-two had accumulated assets of between $40,000 and $50,000 from a dry goods business in Baltimore and Georgetown. Ten years later he was worth $85,000. He moved his business activities to London in 1837, and that city became his permanent home. In 1843 he gave up the dry goods business to become a full-time merchant and investment banker, specializing in foreign exchange and American securities. Peabody "was a shrewd judge of men, he had great integrity, and he was trusted in the business world. . . . The Baltimore merchant had become a man to reckon with in international finance (p. 38)." In 1854 Peabody entered into a partnership with another American, Junius Spencer Morgan (father of John Pierpont), and his fortune continued to increase, making him a multimillionaire by the time of his death in 1869. Peabody is most remembered for his many charities and philanthropies, most of which were established when he was over fifty years of age. The bachelor philanthropist's largest donations included $2,500,000 to construct model housing for workers in London and $2,000,000 to the Peabody Education Fund for promotion of public education in the South. His contributions to his nephew, Othniel Marsh, and to Yale University enabled Marsh to become one of America's leading paleontologists. This volume must be faulted in two respects. First, it is a cursory account which rarely goes into any significant depth on any subject. Most lacking is substantive information and analysis of how Peabody made his money, especially as an investment broker. The reader learns many details about Peabody's philanthropies, but virtually nothing about how he made the money to finance them. Parker has failed to produce a concluding chapter, and one is badly needed. The other major problem is the total absence of footnotes. The reduction of publication costs in omitting these was probably offset by the curious inclusion of both a bibliographic essay for each chapter and a complete bibliographic list. The book contains many quotations, 360civil war history most of which need footnote references. However, the appendix, with its list of George Peabody's gifts and legacies, is most helpful. William P. Vaughn North Texas State University The Life and Times of Joseph Fish, Mormon Pioneer. Edited by John H. Krenkel. (Danville, 111.: Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1970. Pp. 543. $7.00.) Joseph Fish was born in 1840 near Joliet, Illinois, to parents who followed the ups and downs of the Mormon Church from the halcyon days at Nauvoo to the death of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, through the harrowing nightmare of the migration to Utah, and the hard life of breaking the backs of the harsh Western environment and the aborigines. Joseph Fish embraced Mormonism with a fervor that carried him through the persecutions in Illinois, the hardships of transcontinental travel, colonization, and legal prosecution for practicing polygamy. After a life of hard work and a series of setbacks almost reminiscent of Jude, the Obscure, Mr. Fish retired to Enterprise, Utah, to write history. Poor, but unbroken in spirit, he wrote "The Pioneers of the Rocky Mountain Region," a "History of Arizona," "The Life and Times of Joseph Fish," and completed his journal in longhand, covering nearly seventy years on the frontier. This book has diary entries from the late 1850's to 1924. A man of great integrity and ability, he related the events in his lifetime—trivial and important—with clarity and openness. Mr. Fish, being a member of what we would...