Romancing Reform: A Biography of Thomas L. Kane

Matthew Grow investigates the life and times of Thomas L. Kane (1822–83) and, along the way, he illuminates wider cultural patterns within the U.S. culture during the mid- to late nineteenth century. For Grow, Kane’s self-appointed role as the protector of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), as well as his involvement in abolitionism and, eventually, the Civil War, illustrate growing questions within the U.S. about human rights, property rights, and religious rights. Within this context, Grow argues that Kane is an example of an oft-ignored but important reformer of the nineteenth century: “Kane is representative of reformers who combined an allegiance to the Democratic Party, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism” (p. xvi). Grow quickly establishes that Kane was a complicated and contradictory character, a conclusion that only solidifies as the book progresses.

Born in Philadelphia, Thomas Kane was the second son of John Kintzing Kane and Jane Duval Leiper, both from prominent mercantile families with political savvy. “Thomas’s childhood gave him not only political connections, an upper-class education, and a genteel background, but also . . . an appreciation for religious diversity, and a romantic respect for those who stood against the crowd” (p. 12). Small, sickly, yet rebellious, Kane attended Dickinson College only one year. He stayed long enough to begin his career as a mediator when he negotiated unsuccessfully with the college administration to readmit a number of freshmen who had been involved in a lark.

In 1840 and in 1843 Kane took two extended trips for his health. Spending most of his time in France, Kane intermingled with social reformers, republicans such as Armand Marrast, and, perhaps most importantly, Auguste Comte, who was advocating for the field of sociology and his Religion of Humanity. Yet throughout his travels, Kane was consumed with his small stature and ill health, at one point writing to his family: “‘I am unchanged, the identical ache & ailing, nervous, weak-backed, dyspeptious pygmy’” (p. 15). Kane was beginning to form an identity as a rule-breaking but moral protector of the weak and vulnerable—at the same time that he struggled with his own physical weakness.

Back home in Philadelphia, Kane put his reforming impulses to work. Actively anti-evangelical, he spoke and wrote against anti-Catholic nativism and the death penalty. He toyed with pacifism, began to work for reform of public schools, and made his first steps towards abolitionism. Family influence reigned supreme in the life of Kane. He worked with his father on James K. Polk’s campaign and, like his father, began to write—usually anonymous—newspaper articles and editorials in order to sway public opinion for his causes. Kane was admitted to the bar in 1846 and accepted a clerkship offered by his father, by then a federal judge.

Kane further defined his anti-evangelical agenda when, at age 24, he took up the cause for which he is best known: defense of the Latter-day Saints. In 1846, led by Brigham Young and amid rumors of polygamy, the LDS community was being pushed out of Illinois into temporary camps in Iowa and Nebraska. Seeing this, “Kane believed that time in the Mormon camps would enable him to write a book beneficial both to himself and the Mormons. His writing talents could vault him into public prominence and establish his reputation as a man of culture and reform” (p. 49). Using his connections with Polk, Kane managed to convince the president to recruit Mormon troops for the expedition west to take possession of California. Kane made the trip out to the camps, hoping to accompany the community to California. Instead, Kane fell ill and was nursed back to health by grateful Mormons. Grow suggests that, while in the camps, Kane witnessed the suffering and sincerity of the Mormons and became, through this experience, a selfless champion of the LDS community. He admired their ideals, their...