Two of the four leading articles in the October number of the
_American Historical Review_ are by Wisconsin men. Prof. Herbert E.
Bolton, now of California, discusses “The Mission as a Frontier
Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies.” Prof. W. T. Root, of
the University of Wisconsin, writes of “The Lords of Trade and
Plantations.” Other leading articles in the magazine are “A Case of
Witchcraft” by George L. Kittredge, and “The History of German
Socialism Reconsidered” by Prof. C. J. H. Hayes.
The September number of the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_
contains three articles of special interest to Wisconsin readers. The
first, “The Rise of Sports,” by Prof. Frederic Logan Paxson, curator
of the Society, was delivered as the recent annual presidential
address before the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. It
traces in interesting fashion the development in America between 1876
and 1893 of a widespread interest in out-of-door exercise. B. H.
Schockel writes on the “Settlement and Development of the Lead and
Zinc Mining Region with Special Emphasis on Jo Daviess County,
Illinois.” The district treated of consisted of Grant, Iowa, and
Lafayette Counties in Wisconsin, and of Jo Daviess County, Illinois.
Although the latter county affords the particular locus for the study,
it applies with almost equal force to the three counties of
southwestern Wisconsin included in the lead mining district. Finally,
Prof. James A. James, of Northwestern University, writes on “Spanish
Influence in the West during the American Revolution.”
The Wisconsin Archeological Society has recently issued two reports,
one describing the antiquities of Green Lake, the other describing the
early Indian remains of Shawano County. The latter report is based
upon the recent surveys made of the Shawano Lake and Wolf River Region
by George R. Fox, a former resident of Wisconsin, but now a curator of
the Chamberlain Museum in Three Oaks, Michigan. The Society is now
making an earnest effort to preserve a fine Indian mound on the shore
of Lake Anderson, in Forest County. This mound, 10 feet high and 45
feet in diameter, stands at the edge of an old Indian village site and
is the only one in that part of the country. Relic hunters have
already begun to dig into it, and the state Archeological Society,
realizing its historic value, is urging the owner to preserve it
permanently and mark it with a descriptive tablet.
The first issue of the _Michigan History Magazine_ published by the
Michigan Historical Commission appeared in July, 1917. Like similar
magazines, its chief purpose is that of serving as an historical news
bulletin, and as a medium of publication for papers of historical
interest. The first number contains five contributed articles, with
sections devoted to historical news, notes, and comments. One of the
features to be mentioned is that of securing reports from all the
county and local historical societies regarding their activities.
Since the local societies cannot support a joint publication, this
method offers a good substitute. By this exchange of news, each
society is kept in touch with the proceedings of the other. A
contributed article of more than ordinary merit appears in the first
issue by Rev. F. X. Barth on “The Field for the Historian in the Upper
Peninsula.” Aside from indicating the numerous points of historical
interest found in the Upper Peninsula, many of which are shared
jointly by Wisconsin, the paper presents one of the strongest appeals
for the value of local history study that can be found anywhere. It is
recommended to every reader of our Society.
Dr. George N. Fuller, Secretary of the Michigan Historical Commission,
is the author of a new book entitled the _Economic and Social
Beginnings of Michigan_. The study deals with the settlement of the
Lower Peninsula during the territorial period from 1805 to 1837.
Doctor Fuller has given special attention to the purely economic
conditions that existed in the Michigan Territory until her admission
into the Union. It is by far the most interesting and authentic volume
on the early history of Michigan that has appeared. The work is richly
illustrated and is printed in large, readable type.
The Michigan Historical Commission proposes to reproduce by
photostatic process the rare files of the _Kentucky Gazette_,
1787-1800, and the Detroit _Gazette_, 1817-1830. Of the former, but
one file is known to exist, that in the Lexington Public Library. Of
the latter file, the Wisconsin Historical Library possesses six bound
volumes, covering over one-half of the total period. It is proposed to
issue ten sets of each paper for as many subscribing libraries.
The Filson Club of Louisville has issued as number twenty-eight of its
publications _The Kentucky River_ by Mary Verhoeff. In this and other
similar studies supported by the Filson Club, Kentucky is accumulating
a valuable history of her state development. River navigation played a
larger part in the early history of Kentucky than in almost any other
of the western states. Miss Verhoeff’s chapter on the “Beginnings of
River Commerce” contains one of the most interesting discussions of
trade in the early Ohio Valley that has recently appeared. The study
is profusely illustrated, consisting of six chapters and 257 pages. In
marked contrast with the expensive volumes that thus far have been
issued by the Filson Club, the present one appears in a most simple
dress with covers of heavy paper.
Mr. A. C. Quisenberry has an interesting article in the September
number of the _Register_ of the Kentucky State Historical Society on
the “History of Morgan’s Men.” There are few chapters in the military
history of the Confederacy that compare in interest with the swift,
dashing raids of Generals Morgan and Forrest. There are many
historical readers who do not know that the southern forces ever came
north of the Ohio during the conflict between the states. But during
the summer of 1863 the citizens of Indiana and Ohio were given the
greatest scare they ever experienced when General Morgan led 2,000 men
in a mad dash across these two states and reached Columbia County,
Ohio, where surrounded by over 80,000 regulars, volunteers, and home
guards, he surrendered. Mr. Quisenberry’s article gives us a
praiseworthy review of this brilliant raid.
One of the most important publications of original documents that has
recently appeared relating to the southwestern portion of the United
States and Louisiana Territory is the collection of the official
letter books of Gov. William C. C. Claiborne, edited by Dr. Dunbar
Rowland of the Mississippi Historical Society. Governor Claiborne was
perhaps the most important man in the entire Southwest from 1803 to
1817. He touched American life at many vital points, and his
correspondence during the years in which he served as Governor of that
vast territory is filled with observations and suggestions that relate
to every important activity of the Southwest. The letters now made
available for the first time comprise the chief source material from
which the history of that significant section of American history must
be written. The letters fill six octavo volumes, personally edited by
Dr. Dunbar Rowland.
With the passing of the American frontier and the rapid settlement of
every habitable portion of the western states, the present generation
of readers welcomes with interest the personal reminiscences of those
who figured in such epoch-making events. The death of Col. William F.
Cody, more widely known as Buffalo Bill, marks the passing of the most
famous and picturesque character of his time. In his autobiography
entitled _Buffalo Bill’s Own Story_ published by John R. Stanton,
1917, we have a vivid and in many respects an historical work of no
slight importance. Mr. William Lightfoot Visscher who for two score
years was a boon companion of Colonel Cody adds a chapter dealing with
the incidents attending the last days of the noted pioneer, and an
account of his death and burial. No man in all America could approach
Colonel Cody in popularizing the events that played so prominent a
part in the passing of the Indian and the westward migration of the
whites. As scout, Pony express rider, Indian fighter, law maker, and
showman he became an international character, and the dramatic events
that marked such a career have passed from the active stage of western
history.
The September, 1917 issue of the _Georgia Historical Quarterly_ has as
its leading article a biographical sketch of Mrs. Eleanor Kinzie
Gordon, of Savannah, recently deceased, granddaughter of John Kinzie,
the well-known Indian trader of early Chicago. Mrs. Gordon’s father,
John Harris Kinzie, was sub-Indian agent for the Winnebago, stationed
at Fort Winnebago for several years prior to 1834. To this frontier
fort her mother, a cultivated New England girl, was brought as a bride
in the year 1830. She is best known to later times by her charming
book _Wau Bun_, a semi-historical narrative of family traditions and
personal experiences in the early northwest. Its contents deal for the
most part with the author’s life at Fort Winnebago and the book may
fairly be regarded as a classic of early Wisconsin literature. Mrs.
Gordon, the daughter, was born in Chicago in 1835. In early womanhood
she married a citizen of Georgia and so for upwards of sixty years her
home has been in that state.
Within the last few years Henry Ford has won for himself a place in
the heart of the American public fairly comparable to that achieved
long since by Thomas A. Edison, who, like Ford, was a Michigan boy. A
good biography of Ford would be welcomed, we believe by thousands of
Americans, not including those who own Ford cars. “Henry Ford’s Own
Story” as told to Rose Wilder Lane (New York, 1917) is a hastily
constructed narrative put together in characteristic reportorial
fashion and frankly laudatory in character. Nevertheless it presents
the essential facts about the noted manufacturer’s career, reads
interestingly, and should at least serve to whet the appetite of the
reading public for a biography which should be really worthy of its
unique subject.
Bulletin of Information No. 87 of the Society, which has recently come
from the press, is an account of “The Public Document Division of the
Wisconsin Historical Library.” The immediate purpose of the bulletin
is to serve as a guide to our own public document division. The full
treatment which the author (Mrs. Anna W. Evans, chief of the document
division of the library) has given the subject of the bulletin,
however, should render it a valuable bibliographic aid to any library
or student who has occasion to deal with American or British public
documents. Members and friends of the Society will be pleased to know
that our collection of public documents is believed to be the best
west of the Alleghanies and to take high rank among the leading
collections of the entire country. In the treatise under discussion
the author has especially sought to emphasize the friendly, human
qualities of the contents of the documents entrusted to her care. She
has fully succeeded in realizing her aim.
A history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, it is understood, is shortly to
be issued by the Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago.
_A Son of the Middle Border_, by Hamlin Garland, published by the
Macmillan Company of New York, is a narrative of unusual interest to
Wisconsin readers. In it the author tells the story of his early life,
first on a “coulee” farm in western Wisconsin, later as an emigrant
(with his parents) successively to northern Iowa and the Dakotas. Many
of those of maturer years who read the book will find depicted in it
with extraordinary clearness scenes and conditions of a life, now
largely vanished, which they themselves have shared in earlier years.
A survey made by the United States Department of Agriculture in
December, 1916, on the number of silos in this country shows that
Wisconsin leads all other states in the Union. Out of a grand total of
333,160, Wisconsin had 55,992. New York was second with 42,846. The
past year saw several thousand more silos constructed in Wisconsin,
and the Agricultural Department of the State Council of Defense
estimates the number will now reach 60,000. The average capacity of
Wisconsin silos is 120 tons, while those of New York average but 62
tons.
The State Historical Society of Iowa has begun the publication of a
series of pamphlets issued under the general caption _Iowa and War_.
The object of the Society is “to present in attractive form a series
of small pamphlets dealing with a variety of subjects relating to
interesting matters connected with the history of Iowa.” Volume I,
number 1, published in July is devoted to an account of “Old Fort
Snelling” by Marcus L. Hansen. Old Fort Snelling belongs to the Upper
Mississippi Valley in general and Mr. Hansen’s account of it should
possess as much interest for citizens of Wisconsin as for those of
Iowa. “Enlistments from Iowa during the Civil War,” by John E. Biggs
is published in No. 2 for August. No. 3, for September, contains an
account of “The Iowa Civil War Loan,” written by Ivan L. Pollock.
Since the declaration of war by the United States upon Germany, the
study of military history in this country has practically monopolized
the attention of historical investigators. The leading article in the
_Iowa Journal of History and Politics_ for July, 1917, deals with
“Enlistments during the Civil War.” Like Wisconsin and other northern
states, Iowa found herself utterly unprepared for a war. The writer
states that at the beginning of the conflict in 1861, there was not a
single unit of the regular army in Iowa, nor were there any forts or
garrisons. There was not a military post in the state and the nearest
arsenal was in St. Louis. A discussion of the draft and its
administration in Iowa forms a valuable part of the study.
C. W. Johnston, a Des Moines lawyer of thirty years standing,
“concluded to discontinue and enter upon a period of travel.” _Along
the Pacific by Land and Sea_ (Chicago, 1916) contains a series of
breezy letters which he wrote back to the Des Moines _Register and
Leader_. They contain the reactions of this son of the Middle West
toward the new environment afforded by a visit, apparently his first,
to various cities on the Pacific coast. Through dint of reiterated
remarks on the subject the reader leaves the book with the not
entirely valid conviction that one of the “certainties” for which Des
Moines bears the palm among her sister cities is that of being the
dirtiest place in the United States.
The importance of religious denominations in the growth of our State
and national history is being recognized more and more by historical
students. In the _Indiana Magazine of History_, June, 1917, appears an
interesting article by Rev. Elmo A. Robinson entitled “Universalism in
Indiana.” While the writer deals primarily with the growth of that
denomination in Indiana, yet mention is also made of the influences of
Universalism in the other states of the Old Northwest. A review of the
proceedings of the Northwest Conference of Universalists shows that
the Wisconsin delegates figured prominently in the activities of this
denomination.
[Illustration: CORDELIA A. P. HARVEY
From a photograph in the Wisconsin Historical Library]