Freshwater Whales: A History of the American Ship Building Company and Its Predecessorsby Richard J. WrightReview by: Edward C. KirklandThe American Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Apr., 1971), pp. 562-563Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1858821 .

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562 Reviews of Books

convincingly, Andrews, as have others before him, points to the damaging effects on the Con- federate cause of the failure of public infor- mation, remarking that "President Davis had little understanding or appreciation of the press as a medium of public opinion." More attention could have been given to the feud between the press and the Confederate govern- ment.

The author believes that at its best Con- federate war journalism was comparable to "the top performances of the North's leading reporters," but there was necessarily less of it and thus less readable copy. The plentiful quotations that enlivened Andrews' earlier book occupy far less space here. That fact and the somewhat excessive length have made for a story that is sometimes rather thin. Better too long than too short, lhowever, for the book's comprehensiveness, combined with the quality of research. makes it the standard work on the subject.

LUDWELL H. JOHNSON, III

College of William and Alary

CAROL K. ROT1HROCK BLESER. The Promised Land: The History of the South Carolina Land Com- mission, I869-I890. (Tricentennial Studies, Number 1.) Columbia: University of South Carolina Press for the South Carolina Tricen- tennial Commission. 1969. Pp. xvi, 189. $6.95.

South Carolina has the distinction of being the only state during Reconstruction to establish a system of acquiring land for sale to the freedmen on reasonable terms. This mono- graph attributes the origins of that attempt to the Civil War experience of land distribution on the Sea Islands and the pressure from the large delegation of blacks in the constitutional convention of i868. Receiving no encourage- ment for a federal program of this type, the convention instructed the legislature to create a state land commission empowered to pur- chase "improved and unimproved real estate" to be subdivided and sold to actual settlers.

The commission's record prior to 1877 falls into two distinct phases. Administrative ineffi- ciency and gross frauds characterize its activities until 1872 when responsibility was transferred to the secretary of state. Land purchases pro- ceeded "at a breath-taking rate, accompanied by bribe upon bribe and fraud upon fraud"

(p. 57). The honest and conscientious ad- ministration by two black secretaries of state between 1872 and 1876 saved the program and stand in striking contrast to the misdeeds of the first two commissioners, one white and one black.

After 1877 the Redeemers altered the em- phasis and direction of the program. In its effort to raise revenue, the commission fre- quently sold the remaining land in large blocks to whites, and during the 188os more blacks were evicted than took up residence. Activities ended in 1890 when all salable land had been disposed of. Although existing records are incomplete, Bleser estimates that 14,000 black families participated in the program, receiving 44,579 acres, while whites purchased 68,355 acres (pp. 144, 158).

Although the book advances no major rein- terpretations, it does treat in a concise, care- fully documented, and reasonably well-writ- ten form a little known aspect of South- ern and Reconstruction history. The author could have employed the limited number of pages to greater advantage by including more detail and analysis of the commission's work and by giving less attention to South Carolina's Reconstruction and Redeemer history in gen- eral.

ALLEN J. GOING

University of Houston

RICHARD J. WRIGHT. Freshwater Whales: A His- tory of the American Ship Building Company and Its Predecessors. [Kent:] Kent State Univer- sity Press. 1969. Pp. xiv, 299. $9.00.

The general purpose of this volume is to pro- vide a history of "the steel-hulled bulk freighter" on the Great Lakes. Toward the end of the nineteenth century many influences con- verged to further the employment of this type of vessel. Fundamental was the discovery of the iron ranges along or beyond Lake Superior's shores and the construction of railroads to carry the ore to dockside at Duluth and else- where. The national government financed both the enlargement of locks at the Soo and the deepening of shallow channels along the route to more easterly points. The old bulk cargoes of lumber and grain began to give way in impor- tance, and the wooden carriers were suddenly

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A mericas 563

obsolete and worn out. Vessels of iron, and later of steel, took their place. In the late eighties lake yards were launching the whale-backs; when loaded they looked "like a water-logged cigar." But they were longer and deeper vessels, and their topsides were a succession of adjacent hatchways to facilitate a rapid loading and un- loading by mechanical means. As the punishing deflation of the panic of 1893 got under way, shippers and builders turned to these vessels to cut costs. These groups, inspired by pro- moters, also sought a business consolidation to still their competition and attain the economies of scale. The outcome was the American Ship Building Company, one of many fashionable New Jersey holding companies. In the second half of his book, the author focuses upon the growth of this giant corporation during two world wars as well as in intervals of more peace- ful growth. Throughout, the author displays thorough research in the documents. He also has selected a large group of appropriate illustra- tions.

Most topics are competently covered. Wright describes the assemblage of managerial and manual skills from this country and from abroad, particularly Scotland. Yet the treatment of labor policy is rather bland. In any case, the author avoids drowning in a surfeit of anecdot- age. Technology in construction and in operation gets commendable clarification. The one spot where I detect a slight deficiency is in the matter of finance. The Great Lakes fleet was a link in the integration of the fundamental industry of steel making. Enterprisers could not leave to chance the interrelations between railroads and mines and lake carriers. Investment in any one factor led to investment in the others. For in- stance the influence and control by the Hannas and the Hoyts and the Colbys is rather casually treated: the intrusion of the Rockefeller and the Carnegie interests is so offhand that it comes al- most as a surprise to the reader. Toward the end of the volume the author cuts loose-compara- tively speaking-from documentation and sum- marizes the developments with almost Rotarian cheer and complacency. The St. Lawrence Sea- way, unmentioned by Wright, may be a portent as well as a promise to the builders of the fleets on the Great Lakes.

EDWARD C. KIRKLAND

Thetford, Vermont

WILLIAM J. POMEROY. American Neo-Colonial- ism: Its Emergence in the Philippines and Asia. New York: International Publishers. 1970. Pp. 255. Cloth $7.50, paper $2.85.

PAOLO E. COLETTA, edited with a prologue by. Threshold to American Internationalism: Es- says on the Foreign Policies of William Mc- Kinley. (Exposition-University Book.) New York: Exposition Press. 1970. Pp. 334. $8.oo.

Assuming the validity of Lenin's analysis of im- perialism and its causes, William Pomeroy has undertaken to derive from the Philippine ex- perience an explanation for the seemingly anom- alous "rise of the United States to world impe- rialist supremacy with only a minimum partic- ipation in outright seizure of colonies." Briefly, he finds that Americans acquired the Philippines and destroyed an indigenous "agrarian revolu- tion" in order to obtain a base for participat- ing in the China market. The bitterness of the Filipino people, the racism of Americans living in the islands, and the selfish machinations of various industrial, agricultural, and labor inter- ests at home precluded intensive exploita- tion of the islands as a colony; and when the China market failed to live up to expectations, possession of the Philippines seemed a risky burden amid the growing power rivalries of the Far East. Anticolonialists who had opposed governing the Philippines but approved of mak- ing Latin America financially and commerci- ally tributary showed the way. Cuba became the model: actually dependent, but technically independent, it was a land to be exploited with- out cost. Here is the origin, in Pomeroy's view, of America's mid-century "neo-colonialism"-its wars of "aggression" in Korea and Vietnam, its suppression of national liberation movements throughout Asia, and its economic colonization of the third world.

The argument is stimulating but simplistic. Pomeroy has eliminated most of the variables in the Philippine-American encounter, starting with the Filipinos themselves. There is almost no treatment of the islands' nineteenith-century soci- ety, culture, or economy, apart from references to the inaccurate Regidor and Mason sketch of commerce and the unreliable observations of American consuls and boosters. Turn-of-the- century Filipinos emerge from this vacuum in stereotypes-agrarian revolutionaries and self- seeking capitalist collaborators-and the diver-

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