Review of Fighting for American Manhood by Kirstin L. Hoganson

In her landmark essay “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” Joan Wallach Scott encourages historians to explore gender as “a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes” and as a “primary way of signifying relationships of power.”  Clearly, Kirstin L. Hoganson heeded the call from Scott when she produced Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.  In this work, Hoganson explores the ways in which ideas of masculinity and manhood framed the political debates over America’s role in Cuba and the Philippines in the waning days of the nineteenth century.  With gendered language, American politicians and civic leaders on both sides of the debates over war and imperialism invoked a variety of ideas of manly citizenship, including themes of generational differences, emasculation, the veneration of the founding fathers, and even varying definitions of just what manliness entailed. 

The “crisis of masculinity” arising during the last few decades of the nineteenth century took on many forms, not all of them overtly political.  In Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show, Louis S. Warren locates the widespread “cultural preoccupations with the decay of white manliness” in audience responses to Cody’s Wild West Show.  For Warren, the emphasis on the virtue of manliness was expressed best by a female witness to the Wild West Show who expressed her feelings by exclaiming that these were “the kind of men that excite my admiration….”

From the earliest days of the debate over possible American intervention in Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain, the rhetoric in U.S. political circles took on a gendered tone.  Just what did it mean to be a man?  Various definitions of manhood arose during the debates over American participation in Cuba and then in the Philippines.  Men justifying intervention in Cuba appealed to the notion of chivalry as an example of manliness.  As Hoganson notes, the “chivalric paradigm,” the idea of American men intervening on behalf of a victimized, feminized Cuba, appealed to the jingoes (those seeking American intervention in Cuba) both because of its association with the manly art of rescuing the damsel in distress and also because it “dovetailed with their goal of revitalizing the manly ideal of politics” in the U.S. 

But the chivalric paradigm served as only one of the ways in which manhood was defined during the debates over international and military matters in the 1890s.  Both those in favor of American intervention in Spanish colonial matters and those opposed focused a part of their gendered language on generationally different definitions of manhood and masculinity.  Those seeking to expand U.S. imperialist claims to the Philippines, for example, presented themselves as “youthful, bold, and energetic,” a stark contrast to those who did not favor imperialism, for whom those “youthful” imperialists developed a portrait of as “’a lot of over-ripe and decayed citizens,’” akin to Rip Van Winkle.

The opponents of the “youthful” imperialists in the debate over U.S. expansionist dreams, the men that Hoganson terms “antis” (for anti-imperialist), fought back in gendered terms of their own.  Countering the claims of youth and energy, the antis “stressed moral maturity and self-control more than the physical power and belligerence” that characterized their political opponents.  In emphasizing experience, maturity, and a well-developed sense of self-restraint, these antis harkened back to the principles of manliness that had also played a part in the debates over the coming of the Civil War, when the restrained, moral resolve of Northern men contrasted sharply with the aggressive, free-wheeling combativeness of Southern fire-eaters.

Relating back in time to the veterans of the Civil War and even to the Revolutionary generation also played a large part in the development of gendered language in the debate over U.S. foreign policy.  As Hoganson explains, the “popular notion that the Civil War had developed the mettle of the men who fought it” contributed to the theory that American manhood could only truly be found in martial efforts.  Proponents of U.S. intervention in Cuba used their admiration for the Civil War generation to contrast the malaise and “over civilization” of their contemporaries and to demonstrate how military service, the most essential aspect of the “strenuous life,” cultivated the characteristics of the red-blooded American male.  

In the debate over U.S. colonizing efforts in the Philippines, both proponents and opponents used the memory of the Revolutionary generation to frame their argument.  Antis “invoked Washington and other Revolutionary leaders to show that imperial policies were inconsistent with the nation’s democratic traditions.” As Hoganson points out, pro-expansion political leaders countered this by their belief that “it was time to break away from the fathers and assert independence.” However, the pro-expansion men tried to have it both ways.  While decrying the emphasis placed on preceding generations as an ideal that might cause the United States to “’fall into China’s fatal error of paralysis through ancestor worship,’” pro-expansion men like Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt professed gendered admiration for their political forebears, with Roosevelt noting that neither Washington or Lincoln had “’the least touch of flabbiness, or unhealthy softness….’”  

 

Another way in which the language of gender found political expression was through the processing of emasculation.  As Hoganson notes with several examples, debates often included references to opponents as, in some way, feminized.  During the debate over U.S. intervention in Cuba, President William McKinley, a Civil War veteran, was often portrayed as weak and effeminate for his hesitancy to take military action after the sinking of the Maine.  Even his Civil War record was attacked when it was noted that his serving consisted of “’making coffee while the fighting went on,’” clearly a womanly duty.  In the consideration of colonial expansion in the Philippines, imperialists accused their opponents of being “’doting mothers’” while they themselves were the young men seeking to “break from women’s confining grasp.”   Antis were “’old women with trousers on,’” “’squaw men,’” and ‘”nagging wife’” in this debate; imperialists were full of “’manliness, zeal, and courage.’”

This use of feminization to denigrate a political opponent speaks to a larger overall process of identifying manliness in contrast to womanliness.  The men of the last decade of the nineteenth century had much to worry about—urbanization, industrialization, immigration—and one more important fear: the rise of the New Woman.  The assertion by women that they could claim a voice in the political arena contributed to anxieties over manhood.  Hoganson illustrates these anxieties through several different political debates, including the ratification of the arbitration treaty, the intervention in Cuba, and expansionist goals in the Philippines.  In addition to seeking a voice in politics, activist women “were critiquing the assumptions about male honor and valor that had played such a prominent role” in the post-bellum political world.  As men struggled with the changing face of modern life, the critiques of activist women only added fuel to the fire, and men accepted the perceived challenge to their masculinity by pushing forward with “manly” endeavors such as military intervention and a “splendid little war.”

To conduct her research, Kristin Hoganson consulted an impressive array of sources, supporting her contentions with what E. Anthony Rotundo of Phillips Academy calls a “dense, complex web of evidence from numerous interlocking texts.”  While Emily S. Roseberg of Macalester College criticizes Hoganson’s work with the notation that her “argument is repetitious,” this criticism may  be grounded in Hoganson’s multitude of sources. To provide fewer examples than she does would lead readers to possibly rebuke Hoganson for expounding a theory that purports a widespread use of gendered language with insufficient evidence.  By stating her position in many ways, some with such subtle nuance that a less-than-careful reader may find them repetitious, Hoganson ensures that her audience will appreciate both the significance and the commonplaceness of gendered language in the political debates of the late 1890s.

Kristin L. Hoganson’s Fighting for American Manhood does just what Joan Scott called for.  It uses gender as a category of historical analysis, in this case “to illuminate a traditional security issue, war.” Hoganson demonstrates conclusively that concerns over gender roles in the late nineteenth century “significantly affected militant U.S. policies.”  Hoganson does not pretend that gender was the only factor at work in American military decisions with regard to Cuba and the Philippines, but she does highlight the significance of gender which, when combined with the other historically specific factors present at the time, sent the U.S. military first into Cuba and then into the Philippines.

Hoganson, Kristin L.  Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Rosenberg, Emily S.  Review of Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars by Kristin L. Hoganson.  The Hispanic American Historical Review 79, No. 4 (November 1999), pp. 793-794.

Rotundo, E. Anthony.  Review of Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars by Kristin L. Hoganson.  The Journal of American History 86, No. 4 (March 2000), pp. 1817-1818.

Scott, Joan W.  “Gender: A useful Category of Historical Analysis” in The American Historical Review 91, No. 5 (Dec., 1986), pp. 1053-1075.

Warren, Louis S.  Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show.  New York: Vintage Books, 2005.

Review of Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America by Joshua Brown

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (Frank Leslie’s) told millions of stories in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  In Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America, Joshua Brown explores the images produced by Frank Leslie’s and the manner in which they were constituted “by a complicated social negotiation among artists, editors, engravers, and readers.”  Brown’s careful analysis of these images, set in the context of the times in which they were produced, provides a glimpse into the changing face of America from the founding of Frank Leslie’s in 1855 to its eventual sale by the Leslie family in 1889.

Frank Leslie’s began publication in the turbulent years leading up to the American Civil War.  In exploring the first decade of the newspaper’s existence, Brown focuses on both the technology involved in the publication as well as on the stories covered by Frank Leslie’s.  From the entry of Frank Leslie’s onto the publishing scene, technological advancements paved the way for the newspaper’s success.  The transition from rag to wood pulp paper and the invention of the steam printing press lowered costs, making newspapers more affordable for a general public that was simultaneously becoming more literate.  At the same time, advances in communication, such as the spread of the telegraph and the completion of the transatlantic cable, provided quicker access to news from around the nation and the wider world.   With this new technology, Frank Leslie’s published its illustrations and accompanying narrative at a time when the United States was enduring the political turmoil that would see the nation first ripped apart and then awkwardly reconciled.  In these initial years of publication, Brown demonstrates that Frank Leslie’s walked a fine line amongst its readers, striving to meet the needs of both its Northern and Southern audiences.  In addition to its coverage of national politics, the newspaper stepped cautiously into reform movements, achieving its greatest success in its coverage of the “swill milk” campaign of 1858-1859.

The work of this first decade set the tone for the post-bellum publication of Frank Leslie’s, even as it meant that much of the content of the newspaper and its illustrations would necessarily change.  Technological advancements in engraving and continued improvements in both the publishing and communication industries kept Frank Leslie’s affordable and available to its audiences.  But, just as Frank Leslie’s had walked the line between Northern and Southern sentiment before the War, it once again found itself struggling to meet the needs of its diverse readers in the post-bellum nation.  As Brown so ably illustrates, the face of America after the Civil War was changing—and Frank Leslie’s changed with it.  New faces appeared on its pages, the faces of labor, of immigration, of newly freed blacks, and of women.  To keep a readership large enough to sustain production and provide a profit, Frank Leslie’s had to portray these faces in a myriad of ways that would not alienate any large block of its readers.

To accomplish this goal, the engravers and editors at Frank Leslie’s engaged in a system of “social typing,” demonstrating with illustration both the characteristics of certain groups of people and the situations and locales in which these people may be found.  And here, as Brown demonstrates time and again, Frank Leslie’s shifted from view to view, from perspective to perspective, all in a manner designed to maintain its readership.  One example of this can be found in Frank Leslie’s treatment of freed blacks in the South.  Certainly, as Brown notes, Frank Leslie’s showed African Americans through a “limited range of types whose energy or indolence was founded on their putative innate, childlike qualities.”  At the same time, however, the portrayals of Exodusters migrating to Kansas were characterized by “ambition and dignity.”   Through its coverage, Frank Leslie’s provided images of blacks as both victims and perpetrators of violence, as both the unwitting dupes of the Republican Party and as an engaged and enthusiastic polity, as lazy and indolent and as hardworking and ambitious.  This same complexity and ongoing change in imagery can be found in Frank Leslie’s portrayals of women, of immigrants (particularly the Irish, who went from “thugs” to the face of the yeomanry), and those involved in the labor movement.  Throughout Beyond the Lines, Brown shows time and again that what one may call inconsistency in Frank Leslie’s images and editorial stand was actually a continuing process of renegotiation and reinvention of social types, as the newspaper sought to maintain its hold on its readers.

Most reviewers seem to agree with Bruce R. Kahler of Bethany College in Kansas, who found that “Brown is at his best when he closely examines the evolving visual strategies employed by Frank Leslies.”   While Kahler finds fault with Brown’s work overall, noting that it “adds little to our understanding of nineteenth-century American society,” other reviewers, like Helen Damon-Moore of Cornell, praise Brown’s work as, in Damon-Moore’s words, “an intelligent, engaging and significant contribution…to the social history of the Gilded Age.”  Of course, reviewers were nearly unanimous in their approval of the lavish use of images in Beyond the Lines, not surprising in a book about the illustrated press.

What perhaps could have enhanced Brown’s analysis of the social history of the Gilded Age would have been a closer look at the intersection between fact and fiction that seems inherent in the engraved illustrations as used by Frank Leslie’s.  Louie S. Warren explores this topic at length in his Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and The Wild West Show.  Warren demonstrates that his subject rose to national prominence as the result of a powerful combination of fact and fiction, of Cody’s “method of promoting his real achievements” by mingling them “with colorful fictions,” all with an eye toward producing a likeness and story that would enchant audiences and gain their willingness to purchase the product.  A similar case can be made for the illustrations in Frank Leslie’s.  These images, as noted by Brown, arose from a combination of the biases, viewpoints, prejudices, and concerns of artists, reporters, and editors, all seeking to craft the images in such a way as to maintain readership for the newspaper.  While Brown may argue for the greater authenticity contained within an engraved illustration by noting that “wood engravings presented readers with pictorial narratives of events” that served as “dramatic and detailed diagrams” of the events of the day, this is not enough.  For Buffalo Bill as for the images in Frank Leslie’s, the needs and desires of the audience determined in large measure the way the illusion of truth and accuracy were crafted.

  In Beyond the Lines, Joshua Brown has penned an insightful and penetrating glimpse into the importance of the illustrated press in capturing the places and faces of Gilded Age America.  Brown does leave his audience wanting more—a comparison with the imagery used in dime novels, perhaps, or an explanation of why the Chinese received such favorable treatment in the pages of Frank Leslie’s—but this merely serves to whet the appetite.  The mixture of social and cultural history by Brown is a heady one, not unlike the mixture of fact and fiction at the heart of the Gilded Age.  Readers will want more of the same.

Brown, Joshua.  Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Damon-Moore, Helen.  Review of Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America by Joshua Brown.  The American Historical Review 108, No. 3 (June 2003), pp. 846-847.

Kahler, Bruce R.  Review of Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America by Joshua Brown.  American Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Fall 2003), pp. 161-162.

Warren, Louis S.  Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show.  New York: Vintage Books, 2005.

Essay Review - The Trivilization of Tragedy by Jonathan Rosen

I wrote the review below for a class on History and Memory.  The essay I reviewed, The Trivilization of Tragedy, spoke to a deep-seated frustration of mine--the desire of Americans to scourge themselves for the misdeeds of those who lived decades or even centuries before.   The concept of "white man's guilt" rings false for me, as I refuse to be held responsible for the terrible things done by people who lived long before I was born.  This does not mean that I do not believe that the things things happened--far from it.  Understanding the past allows us to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors.  Learning from those mistakes, better equips us to take the steps necessary to ensure that they do not happen again.  That is just one of the many gifts we can realize through the study of history.

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           Today, many Americans feel a deep-seated shame of their nation’s past.  The subjugation of African slaves and the virtual extermination of North America’s indigenous peoples serve as reminders that American leaders did not always live up to the high standards enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution.  These same Americans strive to atone for past sins through remembrance and memorialization.  But what happens when that need for atonement can only be satisfied through a trivialization of the tragedy behind it?  In “The Trivialization of Tragedy,” an essay contained in Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture, Jonathan Rosen explores the American need for a “contemporary rite of atonement” that has dangerous consequences for the manner in which contemporary audiences understand historical events.  (Rosen 274) 

            Rosen begins his exploration with America’s need to identify with, and appropriate, the suffering of peoples of the past, using the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., as his initial point of reference.  Providing an overview of the Museum’s content, Rosen notes that the very goal of its founders was to take the tragedy of twentieth-century European Jews and shape it to fit America’s “mythic needs.”  (Rosen 271) Visitors place themselves into the shoes of men, women, and children suffering unspeakable horrors and, from that, relate that suffering to contemporary American political and social problems.  The unique experience of the Jews is thus trivialized, losing the context of its own time and place.

Rosen goes on to cite another appropriation of Holocaust suffering, this time by Malcolm X in the 1960s when the civil rights activist used the tale of German Jews as “the basis of his argument against integration.”  (Rosen 275)  In an ironic twist, Rosen notes that film director Spike Lee, through his movie Malcom X, allowed hundreds of Americans to subsequently appropriate the life of Malcolm X to suit their needs, nothing the scene at the end of the film in which children declared, “I am Malcolm X.”  (Rosen 276)  The space between the life of Malcolm X and those of the children has been “collapsed,” and the children understand Malcolm X on contemporary terms and not in the context of the time and place in which he lived and died.  (Rosen 275)

Rosen also takes Americans to task for their need for redemption, to feel that through an homage to the suffering of others they are redeemed and are thus free to remain optimistic about the future.  Tourists visit sites such as the Holocaust Museum “to feel that calamitous events are somehow informing their own lives, enriching them, making them better.”  (Rosen 278)  Marita Sturken, in Tourists of History, claims that the American need for redemption and healing “is related to the dominance of U.S. consumer practices, in which consumerism is understood to be a kind of therapy.”  (Sturken 14)  Sturken finds in the consumerism that accompanies the memorials to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing a way for Americans to deflect their own guilt for those events.  Rosen makes no such politically motivated argument.  In fact, he offers what he calls a “sinister suggestion,” wondering if some tragic events simply have nothing to teach us.  What if there is no redemption to be found, no way of twisting the suffering of others to make us better people, to allow us our optimism?  (Rosen 279)

Like a good cook, Rosen leaves us wanting more.  After having identified the troubling way in which Americans appropriate for themselves the suffering of others, he proffers no solution.  How do we, as a nation, understand and reflect on our history without trivializing it?  How do we reach a society that is, as David McCullough puts it, “historically illiterate?”  Museums and memorials, by their very nature, boil history down to a palatable dish for public consumption.  How then do we put history, with all its wonderful complexities and incongruities, into a simple format that will reach American minds?  How do we memorialize and heal from our losses without seeking redemption by appropriating to ourselves the sufferings of others?

From the need to identify with the suffering peoples of the past, “[s]omething has changed in our understanding of what history is” and we strive to “conjure the past and have it perform for us.”  (Rosen 275)  Through such performances, whether in a museum setting or through film, Americans seek and often find redemption, even when no redemption is available.  Historians, museum curators, and archivists will continue to grapple with issues such as how best to understand and then teach history and how to interpret complex historical issues and present findings to an American public accustomed to sound bites and infomercials.  While Rosen asked the questions, it will be for the rest of us to provide the answers.

Review of To 'Joy My Freedom by Tera W. Hunter

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  In To ‘Joy My Freedom, Tera W. Hunter proves the truth of this old adage as it applied to the black women of post-Civil War Atlanta.  Newly emancipated, black women struggled against attempts by white men and women to maintain a “quasi-slavery” system, designed with the dual goals of preserving white sovereignty and ensuring a docile household workforce.  To thwart these goals, black women developed a myriad of tools, all with the overarching aim of sustaining, and enjoying, the freedom denied them for centuries.  While black women saw periods when their efforts resulted in positive outcomes for themselves and their community, the underlying racial tensions that had existed for centuries in Atlanta maintained certain conditions that would not change in the fifty-five years between the end of the Civil War and the Great Migration during World War I.

Hunter’s interest in the efforts of black women in Atlanta to take control of their own lives and labor began when she explored the Washerwomen’s Strike of 1881.  This event serves as the lynchpin for her exploration of the ways in which women acted collectively to secure their rights as free wage laborers.  Beginning with the final days of the Civil War, black female slaves exercised forms of resistance to the clinging tentacles of slavery, helping in both overt and subtle ways to further the cause of emancipation and the eventual defeat of the Confederacy.  With freedom, however, new challenges emerged as these same women worked to establish their identities as free people.  Confined by tradition and experience to roles in domestic service, black women began to act collectively, through benevolent societies, churches, and personal networks of communication, to exercise a measure of control over the terms of their labor.  With these efforts also came a growing awareness of, and ability to engage in, political activities, sometimes in support of black men and sometimes on their own behalf.  With white Atlanta citizens striving to keep black women in subservient roles, it was up to the black women themselves to define their own citizenship and to educate and protect their own people.

Hunter’s challenge in exploring the diverse efforts of these black women of Atlanta came in identifying not only what changes occurred in the years between the Civil War and the Great Migration but in an exploration of how the behaviors of both black and white Atlanta citizens remained the same over this fifty-five year period.  Black household workers continued traditions of pan-toting, scavenging, and other actions to ensure the survival of their families.  They continued collective actions and agitated against the repression of their civil rights.  White men and women continued to try to control black bodies through efforts to limit black dance halls and other entertainments and through a quasi-scientific explanation of the spread of tuberculosis.  White Atlantans allowed, even encouraged, ongoing brutality by law enforcement and the continued unspoken code that pardoned the sexual assault of white men on black women.  As much as things changed for black domestic workers in the first fifty-five years of freedom, so much more remained the same.

Through a creative identification of source materials, and a careful reading of the same, Tera Hunter uncovers a wealth of information that allows her to explore more fully the efforts of black women in post-Civil War Atlanta to define themselves as citizens and wage laborers.  Writing with a lively and engaging style, Hunter uncovers the lives of women hidden behind decades of racial intolerance.  Their voices, once silenced and overlooked, ring through the pages of To ‘Joy My Freedom.  Readers will find much to admire and learn from the lessons of these long-ago sisters in the fight for equality.

Review of Women of the Republic by Linda Kerber

The republican ideals set in motion by the American Revolution and its aftermath would shape the future of not just the fledgling United States but of numerous nations across the globe.  In Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America, Linda K. Kerber demonstrates that the new political and social structures arising during and immediately following the Revolution did not quickly translate to women.  In fact, it fell to women themselves to define a new political role for themselves, a role that came to be known as Republican Motherhood, combining the traditional domestic responsibilities of women with the new sense of civic duty inspired by the founding of the Republic. 

Kerber divides her study into two major themes—the place of women in the legal and social structure of Revolutionary/post-Revolutionary America and the intellectual space occupied by women of that time as they sought to define their identities as members of the new Republic.  Drawing extensively from legal and legislative records, as well as diaries, memoirs, and letters, Kerber demonstrates how the war both directly and indirectly affected women’s lives and the rapidly changing responsibilities that fell to them as a result.  The identification of women as either patriots or loyalists gave them a new political presence, a presence severely tempered by the legal and societal restrictions that were the colonies’ inheritance from Great Britain.  Kerber uses the legal processes of confiscation, coverture, and divorce to explain how women’s political identities were still tied to the role of wife; in a nation founded on liberty, women gained very little freedom as those three processes remained fixed in the legal system as well as in the minds and hearts of the citizens.

Kerber explores the intellectual role of women by examining their education and the books, plays, and other works they consumed.  Here Kerber finds a way of not only explaining the role of fiction in the intellectual development of women but also of pointing out that the women of the new Republic, while encouraged to read history, had very little material available to them on the history of members of their own sex.  As Kerber completed her research and writing in the late 1970s, she likely found that the condition of women’s history had not changed greatly (or greatly enough) since those early days of the nineteenth century.  While she does not say so explicitly, the contrast between the state of women’s history in the new Republic and in the late twentieth century United States cannot go unnoticed.

While Kerber does an excellent job of extrapolating data from a myriad of primary sources, including court records, government documents, first-person accounts, library records, etc., she does not cover a wide geographic area in her research.  With the exception of noting the absence of divorce laws in the American south, Kerber largely ignores that area.  While New England and Middle States women were experiencing the Revolution and their changing society, a reader wonders what their Southern sisters were doing.  As Kerber’s research methodology is clear from her work, however, the door is open for further historians to apply her methods to the South, to enhance the study that Kerber has begun by expanding its geographical focus.

Published in 1980 and still studied today, Kerber’s Women of the Republic remains an interesting look into the lives of late-eighteenth, early-nineteenth century women and the manner in which women redefined themselves during and after the American Revolution.  In addition, Women of the Republic serves as an excellent guide for future historians on how to make the most of the limited sources available from that time. 

Review of Rest for the Wicked by Naida West

While I miss the rigor of school, I do not miss the insistence of my instructors that I write with an academic style.  Because it is summertime and there is no Dr. Rose to tell me to write more formally, this review of Naida West's Rest for the Wicked will sound like the casual me, not the scholastic me.

A few years ago, my beloved beautician, Carol Huson, handed me a book called Eye of the Bear by Naida West.  I was immediately skeptical.  I don't much enjoy reading about Native Americans--too sad, too much (or too little) white-girl guilt, whatever.  But Carol raved about the book, and insisted that both she and her husband Bob had loved it.  And, after all, I was trying to be an historian with a California focus.  So, after Carol had colored and cut my hair, I took the book home and gave it a shot.

I was enthralled!  Eye of the Bear was an amazing read.  From the beginning, it was clear that West had a beautiful writing style, a deep knowledge and understanding of California's indigenous peoples, and a vivid imagination that enabled her to take her readers back in time.  The book was gritty and realistic enough, but the emphasis on native culture and the belief system within it spoke volumes to me. 

Carol insisted on having her book back after I had finished it (can you imagine?).  But I very much wanted a copy for my own, so I checked the usual places, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.  While the book could be had from used booksellers on both sites, the price was staggering.  Sadly, that seemed to be the end of my time with author Naida West.

Fast forward to this year's California State Fair and Exposition.  Coerced into attending by friends, I was resisting the temptation of cinnamon rolls when I came across an exhibit dedicated to California authors.  I wandered over, and at the first table I approached there were copies of Eye of the Bear.  Not only that, there were other books there by Naida West.  One in particular caught my eye--Rest for the Wicked, billed as a story set in the Sacramento region during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.  As those are the time periods in U.S. history that most interest me, I decided then and there to spend some of my Fair money on the book.  I wish I could have purchased Eye of the Bear at the same time, but I am on a tight budget these days and had to resist. 

There was a woman seated behind the table, clearly there to sell the books.  In my enthusiasm (and I am very enthusiastic in moments like these), I began babbling all about how excited I was to see Eye of the Bear and to learn that the author had written other works.  "You liked it?" she asked, referring to Eye of the Bear.  "Oh, yeah," I babbled further.  "That's me," said the lady, now with a shy little smile. 

There I was, at the State Fair, meeting Naida West, the woman who had created Eye of the Bear!  Then the babbling really started.  She was a lovely woman, kind enough to talk with me about writing styles, about education, and more.  She graciously autographed my copy of Rest for the Wicked, and I stepped away to let her speak with other customers.  Well, "stepped" isn't exactly the right word.  I "floated" away from the table and back to my friends, who were now sticky with the remains of their cinnamon rolls. While I enjoyed the rest of my visit to the Fair and the company of friends and family, I was secretly chomping at the bit to get home and start reading.

Finally, on a Saturday morning, life settled into enough stillness that I took up Rest for the Wicked.  As it began with some of the very same elements that had enchanted me in Eye of the Bear, I was immediately hooked.  At over 600 pages, Rest for the Wicked took me four days to finish, but it was well worth it.

The main protagonist of Rest for the Wicked is Mae Duffy, a spoiled young girl who comes to California with her parents and brothers from Iowa in the early 1890's.  The family settles in the region around Sloughhouse and today's Rancho Murieta, rubbing elbows with familiar folks from that area's past, including the Sheldon and Miser families.  Sadly for Mae, her parents are completely unsuited for the challenges of starting a new life in a new place.  Mae soon strikes out on her own, leaving the Sierra foothills for life in the "big city" of Sacramento.

Mae's story then unfolds like a roller coaster, many dips and few climbs.  She is used and abused by men in Sacramento, including both a corrupt policeman and an ambitious political hack, but she also manages to meet many figures from Sacramento's past, including Hiram Johnson and Lincoln Steffens.  She even catches a glimpse of an aging Collis P. Huntington, by the 1890's the only member of the Big Four still alive.

New trials await Mae at every turn.  Even when she finds love, with half-Indian Billy McCoon, it ends in tragedy.  Mae's life, as imagined by Naida West, is filled with all the pain, dirt, nastiness, beauty, and splendor of real human existence at the close of the nineteenth century.  Nothing is held back, from a botched back alley abortion to the brutality of the railroad strike of 1894.  Yet Mae is resilient enough to grow and learn from her experiences, to open herself to new ways and new ideas, to find love again, and to eventually live a happy and contented life. 

The research Naida West must have done to complete Rest for the Wicked is amazing.  She made use of the usual secondary sources, but I can also spot her use of contemporary newspapers, city directories, census records and other sources common to genealogists, interviews with descendants of the real-life characters in the book, and much more.  This was fiction written by an historian, with all of the historian's drive for accuracy coupled with the novelist's flights of fancy.  If at times it seemed that West tried too hard to bring her fictional characters into contact with historical figures (i.e., the introduction of Butch Cassidy and Gertrude Stein), it was all in keeping with the way historical fiction is written.  Amitav Ghosh did the same thing when writing Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

For me, Rest for the Wicked brought to life the very historical period that I find so fascinating.  It was the time in which my great-grandparents were coming of age, marrying, starting their family, in Sacramento.  They were living through the same times as the fictional Mae Duffy, experiencing the same highs and lows of life.  West's meticulous research and spellbinding storytelling make me feel as though my own ancestors are just as accessible as the characters in her novel.

If you love a good piece of historical fiction, check out Rest for the Wicked and the other works of Naida West at http://www.bridgehousebooks.com/.  You won't be disappointed.

Review of River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

Many fans of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark were disappointed with the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  The second film just did not live up to the quality of entertainment that had been established by the first film.  Sadly, this same pattern also fits Amitav Ghosh’s second book in the Ibis trilogy, River of Smoke.  Where Sea of Poppies was fast-paced, interesting, and entertaining, River of Smoke falls short of that mark.  Several factors contribute to the failure of River of Smoke to live up to expectations, including characters that are sluggish and inactive, the inclusion of many real-life historical figures, and far too much descriptive narrative.

Readers seeking to know more about the continuing adventures of the characters from Sea of Poppies, like Deeti, Jodu, Ah Fatt, and Zachery , will be disappointed not to learn more about their fates.  While several make minor appearances in River of Smoke, the story line generally follows the life of Ah Fatt’s father, Bahram.  While readers learn of Bahram’s early life through flashbacks, once those flashbacks are complete, the character becomes lifeless and one-dimensional.  He floats along with the decisions of others, his place in the story being told only through his emotions and some very vivid descriptions of the food he eats.  The character of Paulette loses the agency and exuberance that were hers in Sea of Poppies, her only place in River of Smoke seeming to be as a vehicle for the author’s lessons on the exchange of flora amongst the nations of the world and China.  Zadrig Karabedian begins the book as an active character, only to fall into victim to a second-rate role as told through the letters of Robin Chinnery.  As for Chinnery himself, he is mainly seen through his interminable letters, the content of which appears solely designed to “tell” rather than “show” activity.  The tone of Chinnery’s letters is so ridiculously fey as to set a reader’s teeth on edge.  His commentary may befit a book written for teenage girls, but it is out of place and jarring in a work from author Amitav Ghosh.



Canton with the Thirteen Factories



The characters that do exhibit agency and drive are those taken from real life.  In River of Smoke, there were many historical figures included in the story, including George Chinnery (painter), William Jardine (merchant), Lancelot Dent (merchant), John Slade (editor of the Canton Register), Charles W. King (merchant), William Wetmore (merchant), James Innes (troublemaker), Samuel  Fearon (translator), and more.  It is through these characters that we see the build-up to the First Opium War, the thinking that led the siege of Fanqui-Town (the Thirteen Factories). 

This use of historical figures is not uncommon in works of historical fiction.  It does, however, come with risks.  Staying reasonably close to an historical figure’s actual character, words, and actions requires a great deal of research, and it appears from his sources that Ghosh has done this admirably.  The only suggestion that might be made to Ghosh is to take the example from other authors, such as Sharon Kay Penman, who also write historical fiction using true-life figures.  Ms. Penman is careful in her afterward to provide information on just who was real and who was not in her work, and she also confesses to any literary license she may have employed when telling her story.  While Ghosh provides wonderful information on his source material, he does not distinguish for the reader the characters who really lived and those who lived only in his imagination.  As some of the historical figures in River of Smoke are somewhat obscure (to those not intimately familiar with nineteenth trade in China), this would have been a great help to the reader.



In the book, the character of
Paulette pursues the elusive
Golden Camellia



Unfortunately, there is one historical figure who stands out as completely foreign to the entire plot of the book—Napoleon Bonaparte.   The author uses a visit by Bahram and Karabedian to Bonaparte in exile only as a means of providing the reader with a great deal of information on the establishment of, and life in, Canton during this period.  This use of Napoleon Bonaparte exemplifies another flaw prominent in River of Smoke—the overabundance of descriptive narrative.  One of the features that made Sea of Poppies such an enjoyable read was the near seamless way in which the author wove historical fact with fictional action.  It was through the characters themselves that readers could learn more about the history of the opium trade in India, the technology of sailing, etc.  Sadly, in River of Smoke, Ghosh relies heavily on description rather than action to give the kind of background historical information that readers of historical fiction generally enjoy.  For example, much of the information on the exchange of flora around the world is conveyed through Chinnery’s letters, while the background of Canton is explained in the discussion with Napoleon Bonaparte.  At several points, the author completely disregards both action and character, launching into pure descriptive narrative that could have found a suitable home in a textbook on world history.



William Jardine is one of
the many historical
figures included in
River of Smoke



All the above does not detract from the valuable information contained within the pages of River of Smoke.  Readers of world history will recognize facets of the Columbian Exchange (flora exchange) and The Plantation Complex (the “drug” commodities).  Perhaps the most interesting connection with world history comes from Ghosh’s description of the route taken by Lin Tse-hsu on his journey from Beijing to Canton.  Along the way, Lin is described as stopping to meet with intellectuals and academicians who are considered experts on foreign peoples.  These experts have determined, among other things, that Europeans cannot live without rhubarb.  This fact that the Chinese compiled a body of information on Europeans is a mirror reflection of what James Hevia wrote in English Lessons about the information gathered by the British on the Chinese people.  Sadly, neither nation knew the other very well.

It is true that River of Smoke did not live up to the promise of Sea of Poppies any more than Temple of Doom lived up to Raiders of the Lost Ark.  All is not lost, however.  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade may have been the best of the series of Indiana Jones movies.  This gives one hope that the third book in the Ibis trilogy will recapture the glory of Sea of Poppies, teaching as it entertains.

Review of English Lessons by James L. Hevia

In English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China, area studies specialist James L. Hevia takes a look at imperialism through the lens of cultural pedagogy, striking a different tone than the traditional view of Western imperial action through military might.  In doing so, Hevia makes the case for what is really colonializing action taken by Western powers (specifically but not solely the British) against China as comprised of four key elements.  These include:  (1) the use of violence against the people, institutions, and culture of China, through military means but also through diplomatic and linguistic coercion; (2) the “universalization of pseudo-scientific racial categories;” (3) the anxiety of the Western powers over the contrast between civilization and barbarism and the actions taken in response to that anxiety; and (4) the “practices of military plunder, the public exhibition, and the art market.”

James Hevia

Hevia bookends his work between the Second Opium War and the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion.  Certainly, the military violence of the period is undeniable.  Hevia, however, points to other methods of violence, including the use of diplomacy and the treaty system by the Western powers as a tool to produce Western hegemonic power.  Hevia effectively demonstrates  the manner in which language is manipulated to Western advantage and used as a tool against the Chinese.  Matters such as the development of a standard translation of Chinese ideograms and the restriction of certain words from official Chinese communications demonstrate the lengths to which language was used not only to instruct the Chinese in their relations with the West but to control their actions.

Hevia focuses a great deal of attention in English Lessons on the standard compilation of knowledge of China and the Chinese people developed during the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Western scholars combined the new access to China that arose from the Opium Wars with the sociological, demographical, geographical, and anthropological advances of the time to designate a set of characteristics for the Chinese people, their government, their culture, and more.  The end result was a hierarchical categorization of the races encountered by the Western powers during the course of colonialism, knowledge which was then used to direct policy.



The sack of the Summer Palace



Certainly the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion led to the third element of Hevia’s focus noted above, that of the anxiety of the Western powers over the contrast between civilization and barbarism.  Here Hevia loses something of the strength of narrative that held the reader’s interest to this point.  He writes of the atrocities committed at the time by the Western forces with a sense of detachment, a style which serves as a strange echo of the response of Western leaders to the actions of their troops.  Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not.  In any event, while Hevia notes the concerns raised in the imperial centers over the actions of their military (and missionary) men, this seems to have had little effect on the powers themselves.  Rather, they turned from the simple process of executing prisoners with bullets to the somehow less-barbaric (?) means of beheading.  To off-set the stain of barbarism that attached to Western soldiers during the Boxer Rebellion, Hevia details the cultural methods used to justify the atrocities, including the introduction of the victim-martyr amongst the Christian missionaries and the symbolic place given to such martyrs.

With both the Boxer Rebellion and the sack of the Summer Palace during the Second Opium War, Hevia focuses on the significance of looting.  He does an admirable job providing detail on the objects looted, their cultural significance, and the manner in which they were then displayed to the larger world.  He identifies looting with the Western pedagogical project, and he is convincing that this was a large part of the process.  Where he may be lacking, however, is in attributing other motives to the act of looting.  What happened to sheer human greed?  Certainly the average British private had more on his mind than teaching the Chinese a lesson?   In his zeal to find cultural significance, Hevia might have stepped just a little too far in this area.

Troops used during the
Boxer Rebellion

If there is one criticism to be made, it is not really a very important one.  From the very introduction to his work, Hevia makes it clear that this will not be another “China-centered approach” to the study of Western relations with the Chinese empire.  By focusing on the period of the Opium Wars through the Boxer Rebellion, Hevia sought to reexamine the role of the Western powers in an effort to rescue the actions of the West from its position as a “reified historical agent.”  He does this admirably, while also admitting that the Chinese were not totally without agency.  Sadly, that agency is not included in this work (can one not hear Andre Gunder Frank shouting in the background “Eurocentrism” with the appropriate exclamation points?).  In fact, while Hevia indicates at more than one point in English Lessons that the Chinese eventually adapt Western military techniques and instruments, he does not follow through on the promise to explore this topic.  The Chinese appear at best as passive-aggressive agitators and at worse as mere bystanders to their own history.



Monument at Oberlin College
originally built to honor
missionary victims of the
Boxer Rebellion



In a work dense with analysis, James Hevia gives his readers a lot to think about in terms of the processes of colonialism through culture.  His section on the pop culture outcomes of the Boxer Rebellion (boy adventure books, films, etc.) is fascinating in its level of detail and its excellent analysis.  Yet, while Hevia provides more than ample information on the role of the teacher in the Western pedagogical project in nineteenth-century China, a modern-day scholar will have to look elsewhere for the experience of the student.  With Hevia as a starting point, however, it will certainly be worth the effort.

Review of Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

If world history is “the story of connections within the global human community,” then Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies qualifies as world history.  Using the Indian subcontinent as a crossroads, Ghosh brings together a wealth of cultures and castes, languages and lifestyles, to create a vivid picture of colonial life and imperial domination.  In recreating the world of India in the first half of the nineteenth century, Ghosh makes particularly effective use of the intersection of languages that was so much a part of colonial life.  Through the words and phrases he chooses, Ghosh describes the cultural of those times, defines the characters living there, and makes the reader a part of the story.



Amitav Ghosh



Ghosh vividly establishes the impact of the British Empire’s domination of the Indian subcontinent through the mixing cultures that permeates Sea of Poppies.  A fine example of this is his use of religion.  Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and numerous local religious traditions come together in the streets of Calcutta.  Characters such as Mr. Burnham, Mr. Doughty, and Mr. Kendalbushe use the language of Christianity to justify the British need to re-open Chinese markets to the opium coming from India.  The economic necessity of this trade relation is couched in terms such as “a war is necessary if China is to be opened up to God’s word” and “humanity demands it.”  Both the white man’s civilizing mission and the caste system among India’s natives are couched in the language of religion; the clash of religious motivations, whether true or corrupted, are a large part of how Ghosh describes the culture of imperial India.

The characters that people Sea of Poppies are brought to life through the language Ghosh choses for them.  Miss Lambert’s use of Latin phrases pegs her as a bluestocking, while her misuse and mispronunciation of English phrases marks her both as foreign to her British adoptive family and as naive and innocent.  Zachery becomes successful on board the voyage of the Ibis from Baltimore due to his success in mastering the language of the lascars, thanks in large part to Serang Ali’s ability to master some English phrases.  Mr. Burnham’s language is that of dominance, Deeti’s of adaptation, Mr. Crowle’s of cruelty.  Each character is defined by the way in which they speak to each other and to the reader.

The reader of Sea of Poppies becomes a part of the story through Ghosh’s use of language.  Zachery’s initial confusion on board the Ibis is mirrored by the confusion of the reader at the introduction of words and phrases that are new and foreign.  Likewise, the desperation of Neel Rattan Halder becomes the desperation of the reader as Neel’s language moves from self-indulgent and confused to submissive and finally to assertive.  The language used by the characters who are in dominant positions in society, Mr. Burnham, Mr. Crowle, Captain Chillingworth, includes words and phrases that are crude and vulgar, demeaning in terms of their sexual innuendo and racial undertones.  Readers become a part of a society that is brutal and harsh, with all its ugliness exposed by the words chosen by its members.

For all that Ghosh’s use of language does to enhance the experience of the reader, it may also be cause for some concern.  The unfamiliar language adds spice to the narrative, transporting the reader to another world and another time.  Unfortunately, that other place and time seems strangely reminiscent of Edward Said’s definition of Orientalism.  The strangeness, the sexuality, the allure of the exotic—this is how the Orientalists of Victorian England saw the empire’s colonial possessions.  While Ghosh includes characters whose innate goodness shines through their words, like Deeti and Kalua, they can still be viewed as characteristic of the fascination of the West with the mysterious East.

In the end, the best that can be said of Sea of Poppies is that it is a good read.  While engaging in its dynamic storyline and fascinating characters, this book also demonstrates conditions in imperial India, setting the culture and society of that world into harsh relief.  Not only does the reader enjoy a good story, they have the opportunity to learn of the devastation of a mono-crop agricultural system, the cruelty that comes through class and racial domination, and much more than they might have expected about manning a sailing ship.  If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, then a spoonful of fiction helps the world history go down as well.