Representation and Inequality in Late Nineteenth-Century America: The Politics of Apportionment by Peter H. Argersinger (review)

Book Reviews Peter H. Argersinger. Representation and Inequality in Late Nineteenth-Century America: The Politics of Apportionment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 338. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Tables. Cloth, $95.00. Peter H. Argersinger opens the introduction to his new book on the bitter nineteenth century political warfare over legislative and congressional redistricting with a quote from 1892 that might have been uttered last week: “‘Gerrymandering has become so common,’ said Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Allen B. Morse, ‘that it threatens not only the peace of the people but the permanency of our free institutions.’”(p. 1) In an era when computer-armed political operatives have elevated electoral district manipulation from mere art form to hard science, Argersinger’s examination of the motives and methods that drove the practice more than a century ago is both apt and informative. At the core of Argersinger’s argument in Representation and Inequality in Late Nineteenth Century America: The Politics of Apportionment, is his belief that historians have given too little attention to the role of redistricting in the accumulation and application of political power. Historians, he says, “have mistakenly regarded apportionment as a given, merely the standing external framework within which the familiar and existing politics of campaigning and elections takes place”(p. 4). The reality, he asserts, is that apportionment is far more important because it is the foundation of political legitimacy and determines whether our political system is democratic and equitable. Argersinger’s detailed exploration of apportionment controversies from the 1880s and 1890s, particularly in the Midwest, builds a strong case for his assertion that apportionment was every bit as potent a political issue as some of the more familiar controversies of the era—the currency question, tariffs, prohibition, and ethnocultural issues. In fact, he demonstrates that political parties often saw apportionment as a way to achieve their policy goals on those other issues. Apportionment absorbed enormous amounts of legislative time and sometimes provoked constitutional crises. When courts intervened to ensure equal representation, they were attacked as usurpers, and when they eschewed involvement, he argues, gerrymandering became entrenched in a way that increased inequalities and virtual disfranchisement through most of the twentieth century. 108 The Michigan Historical Review Argersinger’s book does more, however, than offer a useful new perspective on the political history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By carefully examining the process of apportionment—the means by which legislative bodies and political parties redistributed political power to entrench partisan advantage—it also provides a useful analytical tool to understand much more recent events. The contemporary significance of the issue should be clear when one considers that the congressional gridlock so roundly criticized today is in no small part the result of Republican redistricting success since 2000. That success helped the GOP retain a majority in the House, which has had a huge impact on a broad array of issues. Winds of controversy over health care, immigration, gun control, budget cuts, Wall Street regulation, and tax rates may fill the sails, but it is redistricting that controls the tiller of government. Argersinger illustrates very usefully how the course gets set. Stephen A. Jones Central Michigan University Marlon M. Bailey. Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2013. Pp. 279. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $32.50. Marlon Bailey’s highly compelling performance ethnography looks at the evolution of House and Ball Community (Ballroom) culture in Detroit. Deriving from Black drag dances and social spaces originating in the United States by the late 19th century, Ballroom communities are formed by one or more House collectives, often named after fashion designers (e.g., the House of Mizrahi). Since their formalization in the 1970s, Houses have existed as both safe havens and competitive arenas for Black and Latino/a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Houses compete against each other in Balls, where members vie for trophies and cash prizes by performing across a swath of categories that incorporate socio-sexual identity, social commentary, and vogue dance. Butch Queens Up in Pumps is the first book-length study of Ballroom culture in print. Seamlessly...