Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852 (review)

176CIVIL WAR HISTORY of increasing agricultural importance while agriculture in Louisa County was declining. Wayne, more so than Shifflett, informs us to what extent the conclusions he reaches can be applied to the whole South. The authors' scope is not identical. In his best chapter, Shifflett analyzes the economic and social conditions influencing the size and composition of households. Wayne's most substantive contribution may be his examination of the role of merchants. His study suggests that there was considerable competition amongst merchants for customers. With respect to the struggle between merchants and planters over control of the cotton economy, Wayne suggests that an accommodation was reached whereby planters acted as middlemen between tenants and merchants. My interpretation of Wayne's evidence leads me to conclude that this accommodation was decidedly in favor of the planters. Overall both books are impressive works and even though readers may at times disagree with the interpretations of the evidence, the data alone make these books worthwhile reading for scholars of Southern postbellum history. Lee J. Alston Williams College Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852. By Robert L. Hampel. (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982. Pp. xvi, 237. $39.95.) The body of literature on the antebellum reform movements has grown rapidly in recent years. Yet we still know little about who supported and opposed these causes. Robert L. Hampel's book, which analyzes the personnel and politics of the Massachusetts temperance reform from the founding of the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance in 1813 to the passage of the Prohibitory Law of 1852, partially fills this void. The author argues that membership (which he terms "the influence of respectability") was an important temperance tactic as well as a major source of conflict within the ranks. Elitism persisted in the movement, but the cause increasingly gained the support of men and women whose standing within their communities was only slightly higher than that of the antiprohibitionists . He also demonstrates that while the prohibition issue especially divided the Whigs, neither major party was eager to embrace it. Although few of Hampel's findings are new or startling, he adds significantly to our understanding of the temperance reform. For example , he effectively challenges the social control theory advanced by Joseph Gusfield and others and shows that, except for the 1830s, the relationship between temperance and evangelical Protestantism was tenuous. More important, we now have, for the first time, an analysis BOOK REVIEWS177 of the social composition of the temperance forces which is based upon solid research in a broad range of manuscript sources—including town and church records, tax lists, society record books, and county commissioner's minutes. Yet this book is not entirely successful. His single-minded attention to the "who" questions isolates the Massachusetts experience almost completely from the national crusade and the economic developments that helped shape and inform it. The author at times makes bold claims on the basis of limited statistical data. Also, in emphasizing the theme of respectability he tends to underestimate the importance of moral versus legal suasion as a divisive issue within the temperance ranks. This is a welcome study which should be of interest to students of antebellum reform. It should encourage others to study the temperance movement at the state and local levels with as much competence and thoroughness as Hampel has exhibited. Hugh Davis Southern Connecticut State University The Letters of William Gilmore Simms, 1834-1870. Volume 6. Edited by Mary Simms Oliphant and T. C. Duncan Eaves. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1982. Pp. xxxii, 303. $27.50.) This supplemental volume of Simms's letters to editors, publishers, fellow writers, and admirers reemphasizes the efforts of the antebellum South's most prolific man of letters to earn his living as a writer. The letters depict vividly the failure of the Old South to develop a native reading audience to support his efforts. Perusal of the letters again shows the links between Simms and the larger sectional and national literary community. In them he again advises would-be authors where to place their manuscripts and how to market their books. These letters thus continue the Simms of the earlier volumes in...