Banking in Frontier Iowa, 1836-1865 by Erling A. EricksonReview by: Harry R. StevensThe American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 5 (Dec., 1972), pp. 1508-1509Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1861435 .

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1508 Reviews of Books

tioned, Monroe and McIntosh drop a footnote referring back to this biographical sketch when the same name appears in any subsequent doc- ument. Thus Peter Hagner, the third auditor of the treasury who acknowledged many of Davis's reports as quartermaster, is identified in footnotes no fewer than twenty-two times. Since this volume has an admirably complete and accurate index, there is no reason for such a superfluity of cross-references.

Behind these criticisms lies a sense of ur- gency on the part of the practicing historian, who sees all too many of our major editorial enterprises bogged down in trivia and en- meslhed in technicalities. If publication of scholarly editions of the papers of notable Americans is to be completed within the life- time of any subscriber to this issue of the American Historical Reviewv, the editors must begin to move witlh greater speed and with greater selectivity.

DAVID HERBERT DONALD

Johns Hopkins University

MICHAEL P. CONZEN. Frontier Farming in an Ur-ban Shadow: The Influence of Madison's Proximity on the Agricultural Development of Blooming Grove, Wisconsin. (Logmark Edi- tions.) Madison: State Historical Society of Wis- consin for the Department of History, Univer- sity of Wisconsin. 1971. Pp. xviii, 235. $10.00.

Blooming Grove, Wisconsin, is the township immediately east of M\Iadison, and this book as- sesses certain aspects of the township's agricul- tural history between 1835 and i88o. As the title indicates, the author investigates the grow- ing impact of the capital city on the farming township. He does so through a quantitative analysis of major economic factors from the time the federal government first sold the land until the last manuscript census was available. He considers such problems as land ownership and use, the types of people who settled and stayed on the land, the size and value of farms, kinds of production, and marketing. Not sur- prisingly Conzen finds that Madison consist- ently exerted significant influence on Blooming Grove.

The book reflects meticulous research, with numerous maps, tables, and graphs amplifying the text. Throuighout the book the author's re- search design dominates the material, and the

mechanics of presentation protrude unnecessar- ily. There is no question that the study proves its points. It tests various theses related to the data and makes appropriate comparisons with agricultural developments in neighboring areas. In this way it makes a contribution in estab- lishing the particularities of economic growth in a limited region. Against such concrete information further comparisons may be made.

My reservations about the book are two. The author assumes that the reader is completely familiar with the extensive technical jargon as- sociated with Conzen's quantitative approach to historical analysis, and he does not bother to make logical explanations where they are needed. For instance, only on the next-to-last page does he explain "cohort analysis," a model he uses frequently in the book. More fundamental is the fact that for all the specific- ity of data and scientific treatment of economic development, the reader comes away with scant sense of the human beings who labored the earth of Blooming Grove. The study has scien- tific sterility, to be sure, but it evokes too little of the past.

WALTER RUNDELL, JR.

University of Maryland

ERLING A. ERICKSON. Banking in Frontier Iowa, I836-I865. Ames: Iowa State University Press. 1971. Pp. x, 183.

For almost three decades the people of Iowa struggled to create a safe banking system, de- fined by the author as "a sound paper cur- rency." From the beginning of white settle- ment the attitude prevailed that credit was bad for farmers and honest men in general; banks, the agencies of credit, should not be tolerated. Four recognizably distinct periods witlh differ- ing systems followed, including a period of eleven years in which all "banks of issue" were prohibited. The soundest paper currency was obtained after the establishment of the na- tional bank system in 1863. Failure of earlier systems and the necessity for change resulted largely from the increasing complexity of the Iowa economy, a widespread demand for more rapid development, and the growth of a na- tional rather than local market for both agri- cultural produce and purchased commodities.

In a detailed, clearly organized, and well-

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A mericas 1509

written monograph Erickson presents the story in six chapters, followed by a brief, well-consid- ered "overview" in which he relates the changes to state party politics: "Old school" Democrats (by one of the paradoxes of Ameri- can historical vocabulary they are the "radi- cals") opposed all banks; Whigs favored an elastic currency regulated by a national bank; conservative Democrats stood between them. His general approach and conclusions are for the most part in line with the work of Bray Hammond rather than A. M. Schlesinger, Jr. and other pro-Jackson historians.

The study is based on extensive research in published sources and secondary works and an astortishing amount of manuscript material. The author suggests that his generalizations "are probably true for a number of other fron- tier states." This may well be so, but the scene is far different from that shown, for example, by William H. Brantley for frontier Alabama. The genre of state banking history, although well established and perhaps somewhat rigid, is far from exhausted. Interesting illustrations, excellent footnotes, a series of appendixes, a bibliography of over three hundred items, and a dependable index complete this valuable work.

HARRY R. STEVENS

Ohio University

DONALD JACKSON and MARY LEE SPENCE, editors. The Expeditions of John Charles Fre'mont. Volume i, Travels from 1838 to 1844, and map portfolio. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1970. Pp. xliv, 854; map portfolio, pp. i6, 5 maps. $22.50 the set; map portfolio only,

o10.00.

Anyone who ever read an American history textbook should be remotely familiar with the glamorous John Charles Fremont, and most of those who have gone beyond the survey level can appreciate his contributions as an explorer and map maker at a time when thousands of migrants, promoters, and politicians were hun- gry for information about the West. With the possible exception of the president of the United States, few Americans were better known in the early 1840S. But like most men dramatically elevated to the status of a hero Fremont turned out to be a mere mortal with feet of clay. His rise to fame following the 1842

expedition to South Pass and the one a year later to Oregon and California was meteoric, but almost everything attempted after 1847 in the fields of finance, exploration, politics, and military leadership seemed to end in disap- pointment, failure, or outright disaster.

The first of the projected three volumes of Fremont's expeditions probably will not make the best-seller list, but any collection of West- ern Americana will be incomplete without this very attractive publication. Even more hand- some is the accompanying Portfolio, which con- tains the famous 1843 map by Joseph N. Nicol- let of the hydrographical basin of the upper Missouri. The most significant of the remain- ing four facsimile reproductions is the Fre- mont map of 1845. This detailed work was compiled with the help of Charles Pruess and soon became the base for subsequent explorers to expand the boundaries of cartographic knowledge of the Far West.

Volume 1 in the current series presents a total of 137 thoroughly annotated documents, most of which are hitherto unpublished letters. Interspersed with these are extensive selections from Fremont's Memoirs, which only carry the story of his life to 1847 and his ill-fated ap- pointment as governor of California by Com- modore Robert F. Stockton. The principal events of his remaining forty-three years were faithfully chronicled by his adoring Jessie, but the sequel was never published. The well-writ- ten biographical essay included by the editors in the introduction to The Expeditions is dis- appointingly sketchy. For however Fremont's character was flawed by vanity, his monumen- tal successes and failures have never made dull reading.

The various documents in the first volume reveal the explorer's wide range of scientific knowledge, and the carefully selected excerpts from the Memoirs are still fascinating to read. In comparison with the turgid style that char- acterized much exploration literature of the early nineteenth century Fremont's writing re- mains a model of clarity and smoothness. On the other hand, the many "tables of meteoreo- logical observations" are not nearly as exciting to read today as the New York City Telephone Directory. But to have excluded such valuable scientific information from this publication, es- pecially after Fremont's long and painstaking

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