Tolerated but Never Accepted: Polish American Officials of Michigan and Polonia in a World Political Perspective by Don Binkowski (review)

110 MichiganHistoricalReview should make this book an appealing source for students, particularly history majors, who want to learn about themethods used by historians. The third section covers the accounts of neighbors in the Litde Pigeon Creek community. Bartelt's narrative and his discussion of the geographical and demographic make-up of that community illustrate the problems involved in using memory as an exclusive source of evidence. Bartelt describes the task of portraying a rural community as well as the difficulties involved in assessing the characteristics of friendship among youths in a highly mobile society. This is a useful methodological discussion if one is attempting to construct a reliable narrative of Lincoln's youth. The final chapter explains the efforts of later collectors of Lincoln stories and traditions, beginning with the work of Jesse W. Weik and includingWilliam Fortune, Anna O'Flynn, and J.Edward Murr. Bartelt uses these sources to complete the story of Lincoln's boyhood with the most reliable of the accounts from this era of memories and customs. Bartelt's mastery of these sources, traditions, and indispensible methods of oral history enlightens readers. This study of Lincoln's Indiana youth is a highly readable and significant book. Edward V. Carroll Heardand Community College Don Binkowski. Tolerated butNever Accepted: Polish American Officials of Michigan and Polonia in a World Political Perspective.Philadelphia: XLibris, 2008. Pp. 793. Appendices. Notes. Photographs. Cloth, $23.99. Polish Americans are one of themost significant ethnic groups in the history of Michigan. They were critical to the economic and physical expansion of the greater Detroit area during the early twentieth century, making up one-third or more of all workers in heavy industry. In the automobile factories, Poles were so predominant that inmany plants a kind of pidgin Polish became the lingua franca of the shop floor, spoken byworkers ofmany ethnicities. Polish workers' support was critical to the success of theUnited Auto Workers in the 1930s and 1940s and the strength of the union movement in the decades thereafter. The majority of new Detroit neighborhoods in the first part of the twentieth century and latermany suburban neighborhoods above Eight Mile were founded by Polish Americans. Poles are also present in significant numbers in other parts Book Reviews111 of the state, such as Grand Rapids and Bay City. Polish immigrants and their children founded numerous institutions, including churches, parochial schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, old-age homes, newspapers, fraternal insurance societies, and businesses. Despite all this, the role of Poles inMichigan history remains largely unknown outside of the Polish community and a select group of scholars and activists. The social and cultural marginalization of the Poles over many decades and the intense internal focus ofmost Polish institutions help to explain this lacuna. Of particular note is the relativelyminor role Poles have played in Michigan politics as elected officials. Aside from a couple of long standing congressmen, Representative David Bonior and Representative John Dingell, there has only been one Polish American mayor of Detroit (the Honorable Roman Gribbs) and no governor of Polish descent. The role of Polish American officials inMichigan's political history is largely unknown. This is the gap thatDon Binkowski's book Tolerated but Never Accepted seeks to fill.Binkowski is an amateur historian of Polonia and a former Wayne County judge. Like Binkowski's previous book on Detroit labor leader Leo Krzycki, Tolerated but Never Accepted is self-published in print-on-demand format. The advantage of self-publishing is that it allows an author to bypass traditional publishers who for monetary reasons would not accept books on topics with a limited commercial demand. This is certainly the case with a book on Polish American officials inMichigan. On the other hand, the disadvantage of self-publishing is thatmany books are not ready to be published, let alone read, without significant developmental editing. Tolerated but Never Accepted provides proof of both sides of the self publishing coin. There is no question thatBinkowski's topic is aworthy one deserving of greater scholarly attention. On the other hand, the book is disorganized, incoherent, and often barely readable. Many paragraphs are simply a long stringof non sequiturs. There are extensive and often strange digressions into Polish history...