The Mallorys of Mystic: Six Generations in American Maritime Enterprise (review)

164CIVIL WAR history very clearly, for example, enlarged the number of standing committees, thus increasing its efficiency, aiding in the rise of experts, like Giddings and Morrill, and, in the House, helping to clear the way for the development of a strong Speaker. At the same time, the Congress managed successfully to augment its control over finance and executive spending , and also to make more effective use of its investigatory powers. Again, Fribourg shows how a system of discipline slowly emerged in the House, through the use of parliamentary devices to limit debate, and expedite business. Yet the House was also able to tolerate a man like John Quincy Adams, who fought the gag rule to insure the freedom and rights of congressmen and their constituents. The book, however, is not without faults. The useful aspects of this study are too often obfuscated by a detailed recitation of facts that are generally well known. Moreover, the author's interpretations of events are often rather unsophisticated. With respect to Jay's Treaty, for example , she offers one single and simplistic explanation for the failure of the United States to obtain a better settlement from Great Britain. "Unfortunately," she says, "Hamilton talked too much behind Jay's back, disrupting the negotiations. As a result, Jay won few concessions, and Washington was appalled" (p.78). Again, she describes the Confederation period as a time of total gloom and failure, showing no indication , either in the text or the bibliography, that she has any familiarity whatever with the works of Merrill Jensen. There are a few other problems , as well. The author provides no footnotes; and although her writing style is generally very good, she does not always cite the full names of individuals when they are first mentioned, and she is inconsistent in applying the rules of capitalization. But if this work is not a scholar's dream come true, neither is it a nightmare. Despite its drawbacks, the book is both useful and readable. Too little has been written about the general development of Congress before the Civil War. This work represents a much needed step in the right direction. Gerald W. Wolff University of South Dakota The Mallorys of Mystic: Six Generations in American Maritime Enterprise . James P. Baughman. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, for the Marine Historical Association, Inc., Mystic Seaport, 1972. Pp. xviii, 496. $17.50.) To write business history "from the inside out" is the author's purpose in this finely written, intensive study of a leading family in American maritime enterprise over five generations from 1816 to the Second World War. Professor Baughman, one of the faculty in business history at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, writes with an eye toward making a contribution to methodology as well as to mar- BOOK REVIEWS165 itime history. His concern for method, which was manifest in his earlier work on Charles Morgan enterprises also, is squarely within the central tradition of "Harvard enterpreneurial studies." By concentrating upon the men who carried the family from sailmaking-craft beginnings in Mystic, Connecticut, into whaling, sealing, merchant shipping, banking , shipbuilding, salvage and wrecking, brokerage, and other interrelated business activities, Baughman has sought to place on "center stage the perceptions and behavior of men engaged in the day-to-day competitive struggle." The focus is entrepreneurship in interplay with "environment"—business in its social setting, as Arthur H. Cole has termed it. And the author has kept the focus upon a family succession of fascinating individuals with "self-styled definitions of utility, propriety , progress, and success" (p. 5). For the student of the Middle Period, the book is most valuable for its careful analysis of how the Mallorys created a network of enterprises that comprised an intriguing "blend of craftsmanship and capitalism" (p. 78). This analysis reflects with superb harmony of detail and breadth the ways in which the Mystic community milieu, the peculiar and idiosyncratic talents and insights of Charles Mallory, and the changing structure of opportunity in maritime industries interacted and intersected. One finds here a treasure-store of information on the structure of the whaling industry, the commercial organization of American coastwise and intercoastal trade, the microeconomics of shipping and...