Book Reviews

Dreams, Myths, and Reality: Utah and the American West

Edited by William Thomas Allison and Susan J. Matt. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008. viii + 310 pp. Paper,$29.95.)

IT CAN BE DIFFICULT to review a collection of published lectures,in part because such books usually lack a single unifying thesis to give them continuity. Though the editors of Dreams,Myths,and Reality rightly suggest that their collection—the product of a lecture series established by William Critchlow at Weber State University—demonstrates “various ways to examine the driving themes of Western historiography,”one is hard-pressed to bring the volume’s disparate contents together in a satisfying review based on this theme alone (vii).Rather than try to write about the collection in an all-embracing fashion,then,I will provide readers with a sketch of the book’s contents and an assessment of what I believe are its most stimulating parts.

The lectures collected in this volume can be divided into three broad categories: social and cultural history, political and economic history, and personal memoir .In the first category belong James Ronda’s lecture, which ties together literary culture and the expedition of Lewis and Clark; William Critchlow’s presentation on James Brown, Ogden’s founder; Valeen Avery’s selection on the Utah mission of David Hyrum Smith, the last son of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith; Thomas Alexander’s piece on the relationship between nineteenth-century Mormon theology and the idea of environmental stewardship; William Mulder’s paper on Utah’s Nordic-language press; Dean May’s lecture on the mountain-to-Pacific corridor during the 1860s;and Ronald Walker’s selection on Native American women. The lectures in the political and economic history category form an equally distinguished group that includes Davis Bitton’s lecture on the financial dealings of George Q.Cannon; Leonard Arrington’s discussion on Ogden’s banking history; Jean Bickmore White’s observations on Utah’s constitution; Ross Peterson’s lecture on Stewart Udall; and Carol Madsen’s piece on Mormon suffragist Emmeline Wells. Wayne Carver’s account of playing baseball in Plain City and David Bain’s record of following in Bernard DeVoto’s literary footsteps comprise the third and final group.

While each of the lectures adds to our knowledge of Utah’s past,some are bound to be more interesting than others.For me,the most invigorating were the contributions of Thomas Alexander and Dean May—Alexander’s because it interrogates the widely-held notion that Mormonism is inherently antagonistic to environmentalism,and May’s because of the way it locates 1860s Utah in a comparative western context.

The most stimulating part of Alexander’s lecture is its interpretation of an 1844 manuscript written by Parley Pratt that recounts a dream in which the “Angel of the Prairies”appears to Pratt and shows him an immense civilization on the

American plains where there are “no overlooked pockets of squalor,no poverty, no opulence,no pollution”(98).The civilization,Pratt is told,is none other than the theocratic Zion of Mormon scripture.According to Alexander,Pratt’s understanding of the world,revealed in his dream,reinforced the idea that “people would have to learn to live in peace with the earth before they could usher in Christ’s millennial reign.Abuse of the earth and of God’s creations … had no place in the Cities of Zion”(98).Those who claim that Mormon theology is to blame for the deterioration of Utah’s natural environment,concludes Alexander, misapprehend the principles of Mormonism’s founders May’s main point—that the 1860s were a pivotal decade in the settling of the territory that lay between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades—is equally intriguing.Pulled west by the promise of gold and pushed by the violence of the Civil War,Americans rubbed away some of the region’s rustic frontier veneer as they peopled it.Where did Utah fit in this population boom? May shows that because Utah,like Oregon,was settled earlier than other states in the region (namely Idaho,Nevada,and Montana),and for different (primarily religious) reasons,its settlements seemed to have enjoyed more permanence than those in neighboring territories.Nevertheless,argues May,later Utahns—the grandchildren of the original pioneer stock—seemed eventually to accommodate themselves to the individualistic and acquisitive values brought by the new migrants of the 1860s.

Exposé of Polygamy: A Lady’s Life among the Mormons

By Fanny Stenhouse. Edited by Linda Wilcox DeSimone, (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2008. viii + 198 pp.cloth,$29.95.)

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that what at first glance appears to be nothing more than a nineteenth-century anti-Mormon screed could be so interesting, even enlightening? Fanny Stenhouse’s autobiography proposes to tell readers of the horrors of life in Mormon polygamy.But in the place of sensation is a largely thoughtful,albeit polemical,memoir of one woman’s life under the Latter-day Saints’controversial “principle.”This is no small accomplishment for a book Stenhouse insists took less than three weeks to write.Stenhouse’s narrative proved to be so popular that a second edition followed three years later,rechristened “Tell It All”:The Story of a Life’s Experience in Mormonism. Though it draws heavily on her Exposé,“Tell It All” reaches farther and,as a result,falls more comfortably within the category of avowedly “anti-Mormon”treatises.(Both editions are now available as digital scans on Google Books.)

Stenhouse’s tightly focused Exposé of Polygamy is not a general history of Mormonism unlike her husband’s massive Rocky Mountain Saints (1873),published one year after Exposé,nor does it pretend to track the responses of a majority,or even representative sampling of Mormon plural wives to the challenges of sharing a husband.Stenhouse guesses that she speaks for 90 percent of Mormon women —an assertion I suspect may be optimistic.No,Stenhouse’s narrative is primarily a case study of Stenhouse’s own pained reaction to the practical mechanics of the Saints’“celestial”practice.Its value lies in the quality of its writing,its considered observations and telling details,and its author’s compelling voice.It is difficult to know for certain precisely how representative Stenhouse’s experiences were of those of Mormon plural wives in general,but her account sheds important light on the experiences of plural wives whose lives in polygamy were far from positive.

At the same time,for all of Stenhouse’s helpful revelations,one quickly gets her point,and her narrative occasionally flirts dangerously with degenerating into one long whine—at least,as I read her.I do not mean to dismiss Stenhouse’s later chapters,some of which continue to offer much insight.It is simply that one realizes early on just how devastatingly painful the experience of polygamy was to her and how important it was to her to justify her rejection—not just of Mormon plural marriage,but eventually of all of Mormonism—to her readers as to herself. This need for self-justification—however understandable—ultimately prevents the book from rising and remaining above its own self-serving didacticism.Again,this is not to diminish Stenhouse’s contributions to Mormon history but merely to point out what for me were her story’s occasional limitations.

Stenhouse is an engaging,if also sometimes melodramatic,writer.Consider,for example,the following excerpts from the climactic fifteenth chapter,Stenhouse’s own inflamed account of “The Sacrifice of My Life.”Having to share her husband of fifteen years was,she stresses,“the most fearful ordeal that any woman can possibly be required to pass through ...”In fact,“the thought of doing so was even worse than death.I felt like a condemned felon in his cell,”she continues,“waiting in agony the day of his execution”(100).For Stenhouse,the act of her husband’s plural marriage represented the dissolution of their first:“our union was severed.I had given away my husband,and he no longer belonged only to me!”(101).

With this first plural marriage,the cracks in Stenhouse’s own faith began to widen.“Why did the Lord implant this love in my nature?”she laments,of her desire for monogamous marriage.“If it is wrong,He could have created me without it.Or was it for the pleasure of torturing His daughters that this was done? I could not but feel that the Lord whom I served was partial; for He allowed His sons to indulge in their love,while His daughters, who by man are considered the weaker vessels, were expected to be strong enough to crush out from their natures all love and all weakness”(102).Soon Stenhouse begins to question the origins not only of polygamy but of all of Mormonism: “To doubt one doctrine was to begin to doubt all,”she explains ,“and I soon felt that my religion was rapidly crumbling away before my eyes ,and that I was losing confidence in every thing and every body. I was like a ship at sea without a compass, not knowing where to go or what to do”(105).Still, what she increasingly hoped for herself,and for her husband, was that they “be no longer a slave to others” (106).Thus, besides a critique of Mormon polygamy, Stenhouse’s narrative provides some insight into the process of the developing nature of faith.

Stenhouse’s editor for this volume,Linda Wilcox DeSimone,provides a helpful introduction and annotative endnotes.Readers interested in nineteenth-century Mormon polygamy will appreciate DeSimone for having brought Fanny Stenhouse to their attention.

GARY JAMES BERGERA, The Smith-Pettit Foundation Salt Lake City

A Route for the Overland Stage:James H.Simpson’s 1859 Trail Across the Great Basin. By Jesse G.Petersen.

(Logan:Utah State University Press,2008.viii+248 pp. Paper,$24.95.)

HAVE YOU EVER DRIVEN on U.S.50 across Nevada and seen the road disappearing in the mountain range in the distance and wondered why the road entered a particular declivity in the mountains ahead? You might ask yourself how James Hervey Simpson,in 1859,located the route you are taking.Jesse Petersen has the answer.

Brevet General Albert Sydney Johnston,Commander of the Utah Expedition, concerned for his supply lines sent Captain James Simpson across the UtahNevada deserts to find a shorter central access to California.Simpson embarked on the expedition with sixty-four individuals,twelve quartermaster wagons,one ambulance,horses and mules to ride and pull the wagons,and six “commissary beeves”for food.The route Simpson located was never used to supply the Utah Expedition,but was subsequently closely approximated and used by the Pony Express,Overland Stage,Lincoln Highway,and US Highway 50.

Jesse Petersen’s interest in Simpson’s explorations came from his involvement in the Lincoln Highway Association.Petersen’s endeavor to learn more about Simpson’s route resulted in ten years of research and trail exploration consisting of thirty thousand miles of travel by SUV,and over 280 miles of walking.Petersen used GPS technology to define Simpson’s route with superior accuracy by adding his data to old and recent maps to produce this exciting book.

Petersen presents his findings in a very readable manner. His writing is clear and easily followed. It is interesting to trace Petersen’s logic in locating certain spots that were not clear in Simpson’s writings. Petersen writes, “I am only attempting to share what I believe to be reasonable and logical conclusions about the most likely route, and the most likely locations for the campsites. These conclusions have been reached after studying Simpson’s description of the terrain, after plotting his mileage figures onto modern maps, and after making many on-site visits to the areas involved”(3).

Petersen’s manner of presenting his explorations is interesting. The reader is taken from Simpson campsite to campsite. He quotes from Simpson’s reports regarding the expedition’s movement to the next spot and then relates background and history pertaining to that particular trail segment. For example, “A short distance north of today’s fork in the road, the Beckwith trail and Chorpenning’s mail route split away from Hastings Road, and turned west to go through Railroad Pass. A few miles farther west, these two routes split apart. Beckwith continued west, and reached the Humboldt about twenty-five miles southwest of Winnemucca”(55).Following this information, Petersen describes his personal exploration of that trail segment. Often several personal explorations were required to ascertain the most likely route. Petersen presents his conclusions and his logic behind reaching this conclusion. The presentation of this makes the reader feel he or she is part of the search.

An appendix lists the GPS coordinates for all of the camp sites and prominent features of all Petersen’s explorations. This feature is a great aid for readers who desire to confirm or explore on their own. Petersen’s new photographs are supplemented by a few photographs from the Simpson period adding to the completeness of the work. The well drawn maps are particularly helpful in coordinating the route and place of action to the text.

Route for the Overland Stage is the definitive work describing Simpson’s exploration route and when read in conjunction with Simpson’s report adds a new level of significance and understanding to this historic trail. This book could well set a new standard for the presentation of trail information. Petersen’s work is a must read for any “Trail Buff.” I recommend this volume for anyone interested in military history and exploration in the west.

JAY A. ALDOUS University of Utah

The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects

By Gordon Morris Bakken. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,2008.xxx + 238 pp.Cloth,$45.00.)

THE 1872 MINING LAW,controversial from its beginning,has resulted in massive transfer of public lands to private ownership,endless litigation,environmental degradation,and survived numerous attempts at revision to the present day.

Bakken’s book concerns western American mining,the 1872 mining law,and the environmental consequences of mining.The central focus is the legal and environmental issues that have evolved from application of the 1872 Mining Law.

The initial set of laws and regulations for the United States did not deal with rights to mineral deposits.As mining,particularly in the West,became more intense with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada,the Mother Lode in California,in Butte,Montana,and elsewhere in the West,Congress realized that a systematic method for handling mining rights must be devised to replace the patchwork set of rules developed by the miners themselves.The first attempt was the Mining Law of 1866 crafted by Senator William Morris Stewart,Nevada’s first U.S.Senator,and others.A succession of mining laws was enacted from 1866 to the final version in 1872.The Mining Law of 1872 replaced earlier attempts to regularize mineral extraction on public lands and was intended to promote the development of mining resources in the United States.

The provisions of the Mining Law are described in the book section by section together with the history of mining regulations and the common law of miners that became part of the mining law.The Mining Law of 1872 provides the rules for locating and marking a mining claim on public lands.After May 10,1872,lode claims were to be 1,500 feet long along the vein,300 feet on either side of the vein for a total width of 600 feet,and the end lines must be parallel.With a claim thus located,the owner had the rights to the vein as deep as it went,even though it extended outside the claim boundaries.The law continues with rights to tunnel owners,rules for marking,surveying,recording the amount of work necessary to hold the claim,patenting,and how various disputes should be resolved.Legal difficulties soon arose with claim jumping,location markers,and rights to veins beyond claim boundaries,which were resolved in the courts.

Unrestrained environmental pollution from mining and mineral processing is a recurring theme in the book.Bakken increases our understanding of the role of mining in environmental degradation,and focuses on using the law to address environmental deterioration of property.

Bakken describes numerous attempts that have been made to revise or repeal the Mining Law.In one attempt,the comptroller general of the U.S.inventoried mining claims in 1974 and found that few were being mined,many were being used for residences,and the Mining Law of 1872 failed to encourage mineral development. But the law stood.In another attempt,the General Accounting Office found in 1989 that 17,000 acres of public land acquired as mining claims for $42,500 in turn had been sold to oil companies for $37,000,000,making a handsome profit for the mining claimant.The GAO also reported that the provision to convert mining claims to private ownership was in conflict with other natural resource policies and legislation.Environmental statutes applied to the mining industry were then passed, but no revision of the Mining Law of 1872 was enacted.States could and did regulate mining practice,but the Mining Law of 1872 stood intact.Another frontal attack on the Mining Law stalled in Congress in 1989.

Bakken focuses primarily on mining camps in Montana and concludes with a litany of environmental threats to waterways and national parks.Of the thirty-two illustrations in the book,twenty-six are of individuals and mining scenes from Montana.

The book is an indictment of Congress’ failure to remedy problems with the Mining Law of 1872.

WILLIAM T. PARRY, University of Utah

Always A Cowboy: Judge Wilson McCarthy and the Rescue of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad.

By Will Bagley. (Logan: Utah State University Press,2008. xii + 316 pp.Cloth,$34.95.)

WRITER WILL BAGLEY can hardly resist a good story.Although Always A Cowboy was a “work for hire”and the cowboy emphasis may be a bit romantic, this biography is an important look into the Utah experience.Since Wilson McCarthy’s death in 1956 historians have produced an effective outline of how Utah was transformed during the decades following statehood when the Mormon question was resolved.While stimulated by the Utah State Historical Society along with the state’s universities and in-state and regional presses,the work of biographers has by no means finished fleshing out that historical outline with hard hitting stories.Bagley’s work recognizes that need.

Like others of his generation McCarthy was hard working,energetic,wise, interested in the public weal and possessed of a keen personal wit that Bagley refers to as Irish charm.The luck of the Irish may also have been involved.

Not examined overtly yet apparent in Bagley’s writing was McCarthy’s capacity for being where the action was and for attracting the attention of important people.This begins to suggest itself in family relationships including marriages into the Wooley,the Rich,the Clark,and the Kimball families,all prominent on the state’s social and political registers.Important too were a host of other close associates including Gordon B.Hinckley.

Numerous other connections appear.In their Canadian land ventures the McCarthys were able to interest Utah mega developer Jesse Knight and Canadian entrepreneurs of similar clout.Timing and the Utah Colony were important in his New York sojourn when he was close to Samuel Bennion,later a Mormon Apostle.Back in Utah McCarthy quickly attracted Democratic Governor Simon Bamberger who appointed him to fill a vacancy in the state district courts.He managed banker W.W.Armstrong’s senate bid which though unsuccessful helped open banking opportunities that made him a wealthy man and left him a power in Utah politics.And so it went with his appointment to President Herbert Hoover’s

Reconstruction Finance Corporation and his railroading career when the Denver & Rio Grande Western was placed in receivership in 1935.He had been in and out of the RFC in a year but departed with keen insights and many strong friends. Moreover the timing of his twenty-year tenure (1935-1955) with the D&RGW was fortuitous. Earlier the railroad had been much troubled: mountain terrain, frontier conditions, absentee owners, and depression sapped its resources and inhibited its bottom line. Conditions changed during McCarthy’s tenure. Technology advanced, global warfare enhanced traffic, and construction of Geneva Columbia Steel in Utah Valley anchored the railroad’s Utah business.

Maintaining close connection with the McCarthy family and its public and business records, Bagley is also adept in his use of secondary works on Mormon development and the social and economic history of the Great Depression and the early Cold War era. His command of sources is especially apparent in his treatment of what might be called cultural Mormonism and on McCarthy’s experience with the D&RGW. In this latter context particularly good use is made of Nancy Taniguchi’s Necessary Fraud: Progressive Reform and Utah Coal (1996) and Robert Athearn’s Rebel of the Rockies: A History of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (1962).

Not surprisingly McCarthy’s biography has much relevance at this time of financial crisis. Taken altogether, it is a story most valuable for its insights into the social and cultural inner workings of twentieth century Utah as it developed in the American union of states.

CHARLESS. PETERSON, St. George

Proclamation to the People:Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier.

Edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid L. Nielson. (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press,2008.xii + 330 pp.Cloth,$29.95.)

PROFESSOR R.LANIER BRITSCH,considered by many to be the foremost historian of Mormonism in the Pacific Basin,observes in the book’s foreword that “the editors pose this question of their subjects,not how the multiple encounters between Latter-day Saints and the various nations and cultures affected the indigenous peoples,but,rather,what impact these peoples had on the heart and core of Mormonism”(xii).

In a telling introduction,the editors of Proclamation to the People take on the wide vistas of nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin frontier. This explanation of Mormonism seeks to shed further light on the “increasingly analyzed” Pacific Basin world – the geographical world landscape from “the west coast of the United States, South America, across the Pacific Islands to New Zealand and Australia… [as a] distinctive region with a unified history”(1).

Co-editor Laurie F.Maffly-Kipp contributes two essays,which speak to the theme of the Pacific Rim peoples’impact upon the Latter-day Saints of Utah.The first,“Looking West:Mormonism and the Pacific World,”examines the broader impact of Mormonism,the second provides an insightful glimpse into the harried life of Louisa Barnes Pratt,wife of missionary Addison Pratt,who,along with other missionary wives,spent her days overseeing the teaching of the natives and their children.

A companion article to this study of Louisa Pratt is the subsequent essay by Carol Cornwall Madsen on “Mormon Missionary Wives in Polynesia.”Two months after their arrival in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1848,Jonathan and Caroline Barnes Crosby were called to serve a mission to the Pacific Islands. Caroline wrote in her diary,“we have now got to take another and ever more tedious journey [to] take up our abode among the wild sons of nature,”then perhaps remembering why they had come to Utah in the first place.Caroline fell back on her deep faith,adding,it’s “all for the gospel’s sake”(142).

Shifting geographical locations to the United States,two other first-rate essays look at Mormonism in early California:Matthew J.Grow,“A Providential Means of Agitating Mormonism:Parley P.Pratt and the San Francisco Press in the 1850s,”and Edward Leo Lyman’s “The Rise and Decline of Mormon San Bernardino.”While both of these essays focus upon California Mormons,they consider two different matters —in the first,a means of spreading the gospel and, in the latter,the failure of a once-promising church colony.

Additional essays look at the Saints in Australia,New Zealand,and Asia.Ten of the papers making up this anthology were published previously.But as Professor Britsch comments in the foreword,“Some of these articles have been buried for many years and deserve to be read anew“ (xii).I enthusiastically agree.

M. GUYBISHOP, Woods Cross

Old Deseret Live Stock Company: A Stockman’s Memoir.

by W. Dean Frischknecht. (Logan: Utah State University Press,2008.210 pp.Cloth,$39.95.)

DEAN FRISCHKNECHT AND HIS WIFE KATHRYN arrived at the spring sheep headquarters of the sprawling Deseret Live Stock Company ranch in northern Utah on June 13,1946,with their two infant children. Frischknecht had first worked at the ranch in the summer of 1943 while completing a graduate degree in animal science from then Utah State Agricultural College (today’s Utah State University),and became manager of the ranch’s more than forty thousand sheep. The company had been incorporated as a joint stock company in 1891 with ninety-five stock holders consisting primarily of existing sheep ranchers, their lands and sheep located in northeastern Utah. Over time the ranch expanded as additional lands were purchased, including adjacent ranches which had not originally joined the cooperative, state and federal lands, Union Pacific railroad land, and the lands at Iosepa, Tooele County, which the Latter-day Saint church had acquired when the Hawaiian settlers departed in 1916-1917.The company initially had retail stores in three locations in northeastern Utah as well as their direct ranching activities ,but after the Great Depression of the 1930s these were closed and the Moyle family became the largest stockholder, holding over one-third of the stock by 1938.By the time Frischknecht arrived in the mid-forties the ranch concentrated on sheep, but also included more than five thousand cattle and four hundred horses and more than sixty employees (some of whom were seasonal workers for shearing, fencing, and general operations).

The strength of the book lies in its detailed description of large scale sheep ranching operations in Utah in the mid-twentieth century.The logistics of arranging for shearing,docking tails,branding,breeding,herding,driving to new ranges, dealing with disease and/or predators,culling old or weak animals,lambing, marketing lambs,and feeding workers dominates Frischknecht’s reminiscence.He includes actual copies of grocery orders from the company’s sheepherders,details such as the two hundred sacks of flour stored at the main ranch headquarters yearly,the number of slaughtered cattle and hogs to keep the workers fed,the living conditions of him and his family during shearing,and while at the summer and winter ranges.This wealth of detail about the ranching operations and the lives of those who operated it ranks as the strongest point of the book.

From the first chapter which sets the stage for his hiring as the sheep manager through twenty-four subsequent chapters nominally centered on shearing,trail drives to summer pastures,breeding,lambing,the heavy snowfalls of 1948-49, disasters and recovery of numbers,and his ultimate forced resignation in January 1954,Frischknecht’s lively account describes for readers unfamiliar with ranching its joys and hardships.This book will also be greeted with fond nostalgia by those fortunate to have some ranching or farming experience.Hard and endless work, rustic accommodations,and isolation are clearly and unflinchingly described,but so too are the joys of accomplishment associated with completion of hard tasks,or of the bucolic environment associated with the summer range,and the shared friendships,joys and sorrows of ranch workers,their families and associates.

Numerous pictures are included,which help bring to life the account of people and places.More importantly,the narrative is interesting enough that readers will find it difficult to put down as they anticipate the hinted end of the writer’s ranching career.Frishchknecht’s role on the ranch ended shortly after ownership changed.In his account,“The new owners were outstanding Utah businessmen”who purchased the Moyle family’s stock in the company and elected one of the new investors,Kendall (Ken) Garff,to replace Henry D.Moyle as president of the company (180).

There is little to criticize in this book.The lack of footnotes or references to any documents may annoy some readers,but simply reflects the purpose of the book as a memoir.The author concludes with a final chapter that paints in brief his career after leaving the ranch and the broad changes that occurred at the ranch after his departure including ending sheep production.

Readers familiar with Utah history will no doubt wish there was more information about the relationship between the LDS church and Utah businessmen in the twentieth century.A few clues are suggested by the fact that Henry D.Moyle became an important church leader,the church purchased the livestock company, and the church acquired ranch lands in Florida that Moyle earlier had wanted the Deseret Live Stock Company to buy.Until some historian researches the twentieth century LDS church and Utah economic activities similar to what Leonard Arrington did for nineteenth century LDS/Utah economic activities,this memoir, in the meantime,will fill an important role in helping others to understand Utah ranch life in the mid- twentieth century.

RICHARDH. JACKSON, Orem

Rocky Mountain Heartland: Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming in the Twentieth Century.

By Duane A. Smith. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press,2008. xiv + 304 pp.Cloth,$50.00; paper,$22.95.)

DUANE A.SMITH was born in 1937,and therefore lived through most of the last century and the time span for his book, Rocky Mountain Heartland:Colorado, Montana,and Wyoming in the Twentieth Century. While California is his birthplace, Dr.Smith was educated at the University of Colorado where he was a student of Robert G.Athearn,a well-known historian of the American West.Since 1964 Smith has taught at Fort Lewis College as Professor of Southwest Studies and History.His fields of historical research and writing are varied,and includes the West,Colorado,mining,the Civil War,urban areas,and baseball.

Dr.Smith has produced an impressive overview of three Rocky Mountain states,Colorado,Montana,and Wyoming,throughout the twentieth century. “These states constitute the Rocky Mountain heartland,a place that has intrigued and fascinated Americans and others for well over two centuries,”explains the author.“What they have in common geographically are the Rocky Mountains running down their backbones and the Great Plains pushing up against those majestic mountains from the east”(ix).

In chronological order, the author explains numerous similarities and differences among the three states while covering an array of topics throughout the century. Discussion includes the economies of the area, such as agriculture, mining, and tourism. Politics is also covered, notably as the states were impacted by national and world events. Discussion is included about the influence on the area from transportation brought on by national railroads and highways, then air travel. Education, too, is included in the study from elementary schools to the states’ colleges and universities, and the role these institutions played in the formation of the states.

A common theme throughout the book is the impact these nearly isolated states,particularly in the first half of the twentieth century,had from national and world events.Markets far from the Rocky Mountains determined mineral and agriculture prices and production.World wars and economic depressions,as well as good times,in turn drove the markets.Smith’s discussion includes the previously discussed historical debate about the West as a “colony”of the East,most notably in its economic relationship.Excellent examples are presented in this study to support this historical theory.

With the vast array of topics for over a century covered in this book,one might expect the study to be superficial and eclectic.This is not the case.For the wide span of information presented,enough examples and details are provided to substantiate points being made.The author presents numerous topics within each chapter,yet the abundance of information isn’t lost on the reader.Dr.Smith has done an excellent job at presenting a wide-range of detailed information covering a wide span of history.This book is a valuable contribution to the history of the American West for its good overview of the twentieth century.

The three states Dr.Smith chose to study are interesting.As the twentieth century evolved,Colorado changed the most,yet the three states continued to struggle with similar issues.While pressures from national and world political and economic issues dominate the region,Dr.Smith presented unique problems for the Rocky Mountain states.“Rainfall,except in the mountains,is a rare commodity, and water is treasured everywhere.Indeed,water,or lack thereof,holds the key to the twenty-first century,”explains Smith in his Preface (ix).His point was proven by the book’s end.

Why study these three states? This book would be of interest to those people living within the area of discussion,particularly as it gives a good historical perspective to many current day concerns,including agriculture,mining,and tourism.The author,in his epilogue,presents an additional contribution of the book when he notes,“It has been said that to know Colorado,Wyoming,and Montana is to know America.Whether one agrees or not,the three states reflect much that was and is America.Both the good and the bad,the hard luck and good luck,the success and failures,and the overriding confidence and optimism that has characterized the American spirit”(282).

ANN CHAMBERS NOBLE, Cora, Wyoming

Feast or Famine:Food and Drink in American Westward Expansion.

By Reginald Horsman.(Columbia and London:University of Missouri Press.2008. 356 pp.Cloth,$39.95.)

SOMETIMES WHEN I AM LECTURING in my American history classes and the students start to get that glazed look,I ask them:“What do you think about a history of food? Imagine studying American history by studying the food available to people,or what they ate during different time periods.”This always gets their minds working and back to the subject at hand.Now comes a delightful book that turns my fantasy question into a reality.Reginald Horsman,Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,offers a unique history of westward expansion by examining the food and drink available to generations of pioneers who settled America.

Horsman maintains that Americans ate well because of the country’s abundant natural resources.Throughout the cycle of settlement there were lean,hungry times, but conditions improved and were never as bad as those found in Europe;immigrants truly came to America for a better way of life and this included an improved diet.

Divided into seven parts,Horsman’s text begins in the forests of the East,the Kentucky frontier where pork and corn were dietary staples.Explorers and trappers in the trans-Mississippi West hunted and lived on a steady diet of meat. Emigrants following the overland trails supplemented their supplies with hunting, and by the late 1850s there were opportunities to purchase items at forts and settlements such as Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger,and from the Mormon settlements in Utah.Horsman describes the diets and culinary opportunities in mining camps,at stagecoach and railroad stops.Also included are vivid descriptions of food available as well as victuals lacking in the diets of army soldiers stationed at forts throughout the West.And in the final chapters,the author examines the cattle and farming frontiers.

As people moved west they encountered new foods such as Mexican southwest cuisine or Asian food introduced by Chinese and Japanese settlers in the Far West. People tended to like,and to want,foods they had always known,and often refused to try new tastes or consider something other than salted pork and bread. The author notes that many people traveling through the West did not take advantage of many streams plentiful of fish,even when food was scarce;they preferred meat.A common problem throughout the earliest years of westward expansion was a lack of fruits and vegetables.But usually within a few years, settlers had planted gardens and more easily maintained a balanced diet.As Horsman concludes his tome,“…temporary shortages were soon succeeded by a rich abundance”(343).

Horsman makes copious use of a variety of diaries and personal reminiscences to tell this story of westward settlement.Mountain men,explorers such as Lewis and Clark,Fremont and Pike,women like Susan Magoffin traveling the Santa Fe trail,Mormon converts pushing handcarts to a new Zion,and international visitors Sir Richard Burton and Isabella Bird wrote first person accounts that divulge and describe what people ate,when they ate it,and under what conditions.By the end of the nineteenth century,travel was much easier as railroads crossed the continent and technological advancements provided new methods for food preservation,thus alleviating problems faced by earlier pioneers and travelers.

The use of diaries,letters and reminiscences make this an excellent book for students and those unfamiliar with the field of western Americana.This book lacks a bibliography,but notations are at the bottom of each page,which is helpful to the reader who wishes to check sources.Horsman triumphantly achieves the stated purpose of this book:“My emphasis is on broad differences in eating patterns at the different stages of the advance westward,particularly on how specific individuals ate from day to day”(6).No glazed eyes for readers of this book,only sparkles of awe and curiosity with each page.This is a pleasing addition to the shelf of western American history.

PATRICIA ANN OWENS, Wabash Valley College Mount Carmel, Illinois

An Uncommon Common Pioneer: The Journals of James Henry Martineau, 1829-1918

Edited by Donald G. Godfrey and Rebecca S. Martineau-McCarty.(Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University,2008.xli + 789 pp.Cloth,$39.95.)

THE JOURNALS OF JAMES HENRY MARTINEAU read at times more like a novel than a collection of daily entries in a diary.They tell the story of a curious adventurer,dedicated family man and devoted Mormon pioneer.His life is like a roadmap through the history of Utah and of the LDS Church;touching upon nearly every significant event of the time and place.The book serves as both a valuable family history to Martineau’s descendants as well as an interesting and informative account of the Mormon pioneer experience.Scholars and history enthusiasts alike will find valuable information within these pages.

Martineau was born and raised in Montgomery,Port Jackson,New York,where he learned to work hard and acquired an education that would serve him well in later years.He enlisted to fight in the Mexican War but peace was declared before he saw any military action.After being honorable mustered out of service,he ended up teaching school in St.Joseph,Missouri.

An adventurous young man,he planned to travel to the California gold fields and then across the world.When he and his traveling party reached Utah Territory, the Missourians in his group warned him to avoid Salt Lake City,as the Mormons “would surely kill us,or at least rob us,”But Martineau was curious, stating he “wanted in future years to say I had ‘seen the Mormons.’”What started out as a mild curiosity would end up changing his life forever.He arrived in Salt Lake City in July 1850,and was baptized a member of the LDS church in January 1851.

The rest of Martineau’s life was spent in building up “the kingdom”of his newfound faith.At his leaders’requests he assisted in the settlement of Parowan and Logan,Utah,Pima,Arizona,and Colonia Juárez in Chihuahua,Mexico.He worked as a farmer,civic and religious leader,and most often,surveyor,in each of these areas.He relates accounts of his time fighting Indians,being swept up in the events of the Mormon Reformation,and of the anxiety of his fellow saints over the coming of Johnston’s Army.Serving as a scout in the local militia,he was watching for the arrival of the U.S.Cavalry at the time some of his acquaintances and neighbors were caught up in the tragic events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.Although he was not present for that disturbing scene,he was subpoenaed in his later years to appear at the trial of William H.Dame,whom Martineau believed to be innocent of wrong doing and even posted the man’s bail.Dame was only one of a long list of well known historical figures with whom Martineau met or was acquainted, which included Brigham Young,Moses Thatcher,John D.Lee,Ute Chief Walker, and even President of the United States Rutherford B.Hayes.

As a practicing polygamist,he faced threats of arrest and imprisonment during the time of the Edmunds-Tucker act,which forced him to live for a time away from Utah.In his later years he served as a Patriarch in the LDS church,and returned to Salt Lake City where he died in 1918.

The work done by the editors to bring Martineau’s story to life was obviously painstaking.Great care was taken to include ample footnotes and references to corroborate events Martineau wrote about,as well as to explain certain concepts to readers unfamiliar with the history and practices of the LDS church.Impressive work was done on the introduction,biographical note,timeline of Martineau’s life,and list of his posterity.This additional information is a valuable supplement to Martineau’s own writing,and corroborates Martineau’s accounts almost without contradiction.Martineau himself,however,provides the most enjoyable reading,being a fair poet,a skilled storyteller,and a remarkably insightful witness of events.His accounts of daily life include the mundane and the humorous,the inspiring and the tragic.Most importantly,Martineau’s journals give the reader insight into the typical pioneer experience,touching upon such important themes as Mormon-Indian relations,polygamy and the struggle for statehood,tensions between Mormon and “Gentile”communities,and most often,simply the struggle to survive in a harsh and untamed land.Through his work as farmer,writer,poet,surveyor,religious and civic leader,missionary, and explorer,Martineau’s life allows us to experience with him the events that shaped the state of Utah and its surrounding regions.

J. KYLENIELSEN, University of Utah