Book Reviews

Willard Z Park's Ethnographic Notes on the Northern Paiute of Western Nevada, 1933-1944. Vol. 1.

Compiled and edited by CATHERINE S. FOWLER. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 114. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1989. xxx + 160 pp. $27.50.)

Great Basin anthropologists are fortunate to have inherited a tradition of scholarly anthropological endeavor of the highest quality. That tradition is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Julian H. Steward. For years his classic (1938) ecology-oriented ethnography, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, provided scholars a fundamental source work on Native American peoples of the Great Basin culture area. The focus of that work was the Western Shoshone of the drier, central Great Basin and Owens Valley, California The enduring influence of Steward's research is a tribute to his abilities; however, the tendency for his characterizations of Nevada Shoshonean patterns to be extended to all native Basin peoples is a negative consequence of his work This bias has persisted largely due to the scarcity and unavailability of ethnographic literature on the Ute, Northern Paiute, and other groups who lived in the vicinity of wetlands in the Great Basin. (See p. xix for Fowler's comments on this issue.)

At the same time that Steward was pursuing his research, other scholars were studying the native peoples who lived on the better watered eastern and western peripheries of the Basin One of these others was Willard Z. Park During the 1930s and early 1940s Park studied the Northern Paiute who traditionally lived near Pyramid, Walker, and Honey lakes, the Humboldt and Carson sinks, and other regions of western Nevada.

This volume (the first of two), compiled and edited by the prominent Great Basin ethnographer Catherine Fowler of the University of Nevada, Reno, presents for the first time in published form Park's complete notes on these peoples.

Volume 1 includes a reprinting of Park's synthesis of his studies published \n American Anthropologist "'The Organization and Habitat of Paviotso Bands," and sections on subsistence, material culture, transportation, medicines, and political organization As emphasized by Fowler, Park's notes are wonderfully rich in detail, primarily various informants' comments on the topic at hand. The text is supplemented by Fowler with footnotes containing comparative insights from appropriate ethnographic literature and with in-text introductions for most topics as well as section summaries These latter comments by Fowler are clearly separated from Park's notes by brackets.

Fowler has also provided a useful introduction that includes biographical data on Park a description of his manuscripts and collections, details on the Northern Paiute people that Park interviewed, comments on the local environment, and a short history of the native peoples of the study area A Northern Paiute lexicon obtained by Park is included in an appendix Illustrations are good and include both historic photographs as well as drawings of artifacts and activities.

The compilation and organization of these important materials (2,000 or so typescript pages) is expertly handled by Fowler. Her notes add much to the volume and do not detract from the flavor of Park's material. In fact. Fowler's comments are often essential in the absence of introductory or summary statements by Park If there is a criticism of this publication it is a certain frustration felt by the reader (and likely by Fowler as well; however, see p. xviii of the introduction) about the lack of synthetic insights from Park himself on the various topics covered here.

This publication (along with an upcoming volume 2 to include sections on social organization, mythology, games and music, etc.) does much to resolve the bias in Great Basin studies alluded to above. This work is very much in the tradition of quality anthropological research and is a welcome and important addition to the Great Basin ethnographic literature It is highly recommended to any scholar interested in a more complete knowledge of native Great Basin people and their lifeways

JOEL C JANETSKI Brigham Young University

World War II and the West: Reshaping the Economy.

By GERALD D NASH (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 xiii + 299 pp $32.50.)

As Nash makes abundantly clear in his pioneering study, World War II was a turning point in the economic history of the West As part of its effort to establish a wartime economy, Washington invested $40 billion in the western states which expanded the region's manufacturing base, created new industries such as aluminum, and set in place a scientific complex housed in universities and government research facilities. This burst of industrial and research activity freed the region of its dependence on eastern capital and sparked a new air of self-confidence among westerners.

In his study of this transformation, Nash deftly analyzes the tension between big and small business sectors that shaped every dimension of public policy. Western congressmen set up federal agencies to direct war contracts to smaller companies and established special congressional committees to open channels for small businessmen isolated from federal officials In Washington, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a strong western advocate, lobbied for small-scale miners, encouraged cheap power, and engineered the construction of new aluminum plants, all to help preserve small business Western congressmen and Ickes hoped that these actions would generate a diversified economy free of corporate control.

Despite these efforts, corporations benefited from government demands for low-cost, volume production and actually expanded their presence in key western industries By waf s end, Kaiser and Bechtel dominated shipbuilding Similarly, the big four western mining companies maintained their unrelenting grip on the minerals industries. The six major aircraft manufacturers also remained unchallenged in their leadership of the industry and even standardized production through the Aircraft War Production Council At no point did small business threaten the large corporations and often survived only as subcontractors to large-scale companies such as Lockheed and Douglas aircraft manufacturers.

Unexpectedly, the war made westerners acutely conscious of their dwindling natural resources, once critical in their prewar, export economy Ickes anticipated this concern when he stressed the need to substitute manufacturing for resource dependent operations, a move also designed to end eastern exploitation of the region. Western ranchers and farmers echoed these sentiments when they voiced support for more government management of the shrinking land base, an idea embodied within the Bureau of Land Management.

Surprisingly, westerners embraced the notion of planning, once regarded with great suspicion and distrust Reflecting these past attitudes, they insisted that control of the planning process remain in local hands, free of a distant and unresponsive federal bureaucracy. By 1945 planning agencies had appeared throughout all levels of state and local government and had even spread to the private sector among groups as diverse as manufacturing associations and chambers of commerce.

Planning also occupied a central place in the debate over reconversion Westerners were keenly aware of Washington's importance in the postwar economy and called for continued federal funding, new public works programs, and disposal of wartime plants at low cost Western promoters also demanded federal support for the air industry and assistance in ending the discriminatory railroad rates that had adversely affected the West.

Nash's work demonstrates the astounding paradoxes of the West's wartime experience First, writers such as Bernard De Voto celebrated the West as a new frontier of unlimited opportunity in which small business would flourish, an attitude encouraged by the free enterprise spirit of western leaders but wholly at odds with the enhanced position of corporate enterprise.

Second, western entrepreneurs won for a once-backward region a well-deserved reputation for innovation by pioneering new production methods Managerial and technological innovations transformed craft-oriented operations such as shipbuilding into mass-production industries and enabled the western producers to overtake their eastern competition. This strategy accounts for the ascendancy of the West in key industries and created a sound foundation for the postwar years.

Last, western demands for federal participation in the region's economy, even in activities as crucial as grazing, contrasts sharply with the overt hostility displayed toward all forms of central direction during the 1980s.

In the future those needing an introduction to this complicated and important topic will almost certainly have to begin with Nash's insightful study.

EDWARD J. DAVIES II University of Utah

The Gold Discovery Journal of Azariah Smith.

Edited by DAVID L BIGLER (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990 x -b 159 p p $17.50.)

In 1847 teenager Azariah Smith (1828-1912) enlisted in the Mormon Battalion He soon started a march across half of North America Expecting to participate in a war with Mexico, Smith and his comrades never saw military action. But a few of these Mormons, including young Azariah, marched into the annals of western American history. He was present at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848, when James Marshall made his world-changing discovery of gold Only he and Henry Bigler recorded the find at or near the moment it happened.

However, this edition of Smith's Journal seems mistitled. In truth, only 30 pages have anything to do with the California gold discovery and resulting rush On January 30, 1848, over one week after the fact Smith noted, "This week Monday the 24th [date inserted later] Mr Marshall found some pieces of (as we all suppose) Gold" (p. 108). The young Mormon's entry later corroborated Henry Biglers diary which historians have used since the late nineteenth century to mark the date of the discovery. Aside from proving Biglers record, the real historical value of Smith's journal is his narrative of the march of the Mormon Battalion, his experiences in occupied California following the Mexican-American War, and his account of the weeks following Marshall's discovery when a handful of Sutter's workmen had the gold fields to themselves.

This edition of Azariah Smith's journal closes with a well-conceived editorial epilogue David L Bigler recounts the participation of 60-yearold Smith in California's Golden jubilee celebration of 1898. Smith, along with Henry Bigler, James Brown, and William Johnston (the surviving members of Marshall's work crew of 1848), went as honored guests to this San Francisco commemorative event Through the diarist's own words the honor these four elderly Mormons felt becomes quite clear.

David Bigler, a distant relative of both Azariah Smith and Henry Bigler, adds to the historical value of Smith's writings through his thoughtful chapter introductions and detailed footnotes. Further, the book is distinguished by captivating illustrations and useful maps For these reasons alone The Gold Discovery Journal of Azariah Smith should win a deserved spot on library shelves and in the bookcases of scholars and buffs of western American history.

M GUY BISHOP Natural History Museum ofLos Angeles County

Regulating Danger: The Strugglefor Mine Safety in the Rocky Mountain Coat Industry.

By JAMES WHITESIDE (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. xvi -I- 265 pp. $37.50.)

In Regulating Danger, James Whiteside delineates the development of safety practices, legislation, and eventual enforcement from the 1800s to the 1980s He has amassed a great deal of data, primarily on Colorado but also on New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana Sprinkled lightly with footnotes, the work zigzags back and forth through the history of the five states A bibliographic essay evaluates most of the pertinent secondary sources and Congressional documents, especially those available in and/or pertaining to Colorado.

The greatest strengths of this book are three, beginning with the facts amassed. Second, Whiteside gives a very clear explanation of the technical workings of coal mines and the spectrum of jobs within the industry Third, he makes an important distinction between much publicized coal mine explosions and more common but generally unheralded deaths from falls of rock and haulage accidents.

Unfortunately, however, the incipient strength of the work has been undercut by a weak theoretical framework and a thematic rather than a chronological approach. Whiteside explicitly discusses the distinctiveness of the Rocky Mountain coal industry (as compared to the East and to hard rock mines) only in the conclusion If presented earlier, this discussion might have helped to explain the importance of his research. Second, slippery chronology makes much of the book repetitive, additionally forcing Whiteside to assert what he fails to show. For example, events of the Progressive Era (1900-1917) are discussed in chapters 2 through 7. The movement is finally defined in chapter 5, including a reference to " laws to regulate conditions in which industrial workers toiled" (p 98) Yet Whiteside waits until his "Conclusion" (pp.209-10) to state that the Bureau of Mines, created in 1910, was "established to study the problem of mine safety and recommend solutions to industry and state governments."

Other problems, large and small, crowd the work Most noticeably, Whiteside fails to strike a balance b ^ tween the miners' and operators' views, favoring the latter For example, on p 49 he makes the totally erroneous statement that miners "tended to segregate themselves" in company housing, ignoring the absolute power of the company Smaller details also need attention: The map of Utah on p 14 is misdrawn, giving that state part of Wyoming's coal-rich Uinta County On the following page, the arrival of the Union Pacific in Utah is given as 1870, a year too late. These and other nagging errors mean that Whiteside has missed i:he chance to provide the definitive work on this important subject Instead, he has pioneered a path that others must follow.

NANCYJ TANIGUCHI California State University, Stanislaus

Dan De Quille, the Washoe Giant: A Biograptiy and Anthology.

By RICHARD A. DWYER and RICHARD E. LINGENFELTER. (Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1990. xii-b452 p p Paper, $16.95.)

Two midwesterners migrated to the frontiers of California and Nevada in the late 1850s and 1860s, not to become rich miners, although they tried, but to become eminent literary figures of Nevada They adopted pseudonyms of Mark Twain and Dan De Quille (the latter being a kind of pun on his real name, William Wright), and for a time in the 1860s the better known of the two was De Quille They roomed together, wrote about each other, and even after Twain moved to Connecticut and worldwide fame, their friendship continued. Twain's greatest act of friendship was to invite De Quille to live with him so he could complete The Big Bonanza for which De Quille is remembered and which is still in print.

De Quille wrote mostly short pieces for newspapers. Like Twain he often wrote in dialect Irish or frontier argot and like Twain he sometimes took the big gamble and wrote outrageous stories and hoaxes A good example is his account of the man who believed he was growing a beef liver in his nose and how it was extracted by a perceptive physician, an illustration of a psychosomatic illness. Or there is the man with dropsy, whose body was drained of water to slake the thirst of companions stranded on the Nevada desert. There is also the hoax of the silver man, a sort of petrified body found in the diggings, or the inventor of solar armor who froze to death on the hot desert clothed in his cooling device. De Quille was a consummate storyteller with a large dose of imagination.

But he was little more than that He was not a social critic, not an accurate reporter He is unreliable for the historian In all his short stories there is a touch of fiction Perhaps he revealed the temper ofthe times, but mainly he was a storyteller.

De Quille wrote in the first person, but we do not learn much about him as a person in his stories Dwyer and Lingenfelter have written a short biography as an introduction to the selections, based on correspondence and other documents at the Bancroft Library, but we still do not get acquainted with the intimate William Wright. As a young man with a growing family Will was given a rich Iowa farm, and yet he forsook all of that and virtually abandoned his wife and children for the California and later the Washoe mining fields. What personal or economic crisis led him to flee his family.^ H e became a notoriously debilitated alcoholic, causing him to be fired from his jo b on the Territorial Enterprise. Was there a reason for his descent into inebriation.^ Very little of the inner life of William Wright is revealed here.

Th e tales of imagination gathered here are worth reading on their own merit. Very little editing is really necessary, although occasionally there is an idiom or a reference that could be explained in brackets Th e editors assembled a checklist of De Quille's writings, knowing full well that other stories will come to light De Quille has been too much forgotten, and Dwyer and Lingenfelter have taken steps to restore him to his rightful place.

WILLIAM H LYON Northern Arizona University Flagstaff