Cornish in Michigan by Russell M. Magnaghi (review)

142 Michigan Historical Review automobile criticism while providing a theoretical foundation for the persistence of the automobile. Sean Seyer Auburn University Russell M. Magnaghi. Cornish in Michigan. “Discovering the Peoples of Michigan” series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2007. Pp. 101. Appendices. For further reference. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $11.95. Cornish in Michigan, by Northern Michigan University professor and history department chair Russell M. Magnaghi, is a recent volume in the “Discovering the Peoples of Michigan” series, which is edited by Magnaghi and Western Michigan University anthropologist Arthur W. Helweg. The series now numbers almost thirty volumes, most of which deal with immigrant or religious groups. These slender works are intended more for general readers than for scholars and are essentially extended essays. Most of these books have about seventy pages of text, which makes them half the size of a contemporary counterpart series, “People in Minnesota History,” published by the Minnesota Historical Society. The most notable contribution of Cornish in Michigan is to move the focus away from the single men who brought skills as copper and iron miners from their Celtic homeland, and settled in the Upper Peninsula between the middle and last decades of the nineteenth century. Once the mines played out, however, these men relocated—moving to California, Montana, or Wisconsin, or sometimes even back to England. Although Magnaghi acknowledges their occupational specialization (many were mine “captains” or foremen) and transience, he spends far fewer pages on this aspect of Cornish life than does the Michigan chapter in A. L. Rowse’s work The Cornish in America (1969). There is almost nothing in Magnaghi’s book, for example, on the Michigan copper strike of 1913-1914, which caused some twenty-five hundred miners to leave the region. Instead, Cornish in Michigan concentrates on culture, namely what these British immigrants and their families brought to the “Wolverine State,” briefly outlining the role of women (mostly homebound), religion (mostly Methodist), sports (mostly cricket and wrestling), organizations (mostly the Sons of St. George and the Daughters of St. George), and especially culinary customs. There are Book Reviews 143 four appendices on Cornish foodways, including “home remedies,” and four pages of “Cornish Recipes.” Although Cornish in Michigan relies in part on compilations prepared by local historical societies and on the frameworks offered by secondary works such as those by Rowse and folklorist Richard Dorson, the author’s interviews with descendants of the original settlers contribute to the volume’s usefulness, particularly in the too-brief chapter on “The Cornish in the Lower Peninsula.” Readers would probably like to learn more about the Cornish of the second and subsequent generations in communities such as Flint and Highland Park, where many of them settled and worked in the automobile industry. A fine list of online and print resources for further reference adds considerable value to this short survey. Roland L. Guyotte University of Minnesota, Morris James M. McClurken. Our People, Our Journey: The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2009. Pp. 370. Index. Notes. Photographs. References. Cloth, $34.95. Our People, Our Journey was written with a general audience in mind, and in twenty-six short chapters the author describes many of the changes and challenges faced by Ottawa living in southwestern Michigan. These Ottawa later became the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, but only after a long, often tragic, struggle failed to achieve federal recognition under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. This book recounts that struggle and the other paths by which the band finally won recognition in 1994. The beginning chapters of Our People, Our Journey sketch Ottawa life on the Grand River and discuss the group’s relocation to Mason County, Michigan. In addition, McClurken provides an extensive description of the early Ottawa beliefs and customs, as well as detailing the transition from an earlier form of band society to the group’s present organization. The author emphasizes Ottawa horticultural subsistence farming as well as lifestyles dependent on hunting and gathering as characteristic of the larger Anishinaabeg community of which the Ottawa were part. McClurken provides readers with an extensive analysis of the oftentimes controversial Indian Reorganization Act...