On a Slow Train through Arkansaw by Thomas W. Jackson; W. K. McNeilReview by: Timothy P. DonovanThe Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 273-275Published by: Arkansas Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40027766 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 273

religious, educational, and fraternal organizations, while others which were more politically oriented had ties with the Republican party until the 1930s. Regardless of their affiliation, a majority of black newspapers were small operations in which one or two individuals performed all tasks from editing and printing to advertising and subscriptions. The

perceptive essays by Everett Slavens, Alton Hornsby, Henry Lewis Suggs and other contributors suggest that the larger and more successful black

newspapers which existed for many years, such as the St. Louis Argus, Savannah Tribune and Norfolk Journal and Guide, owed their success

largely to the resourcefulness, economic solvency, and commitment of the editors and publishers.

Of especial interest to readers of the Quarterly will be the informative

essay on the black press in Arkansas by Professor Calvin Smith of Arkan- sas State University. Although Arkansas had fewer black newspapers than some of the more populous southern states and probably has not

equalled the efforts of some states in locating and preserving copies of black weeklies, the experience of its black press resembled in many respects that in other ex-Confederate states. Beginning with the Arkansas Freeman in the late 1860s, the press stood alongside the church and the school as an institution of critical importance in shaping black society and culture in the postbellum era. Always careful to weave the story of the black press into the larger history of the state and its black commun-

ity, Professor Smith devotes special attention to the role of Arkansas State Press, a weekly published in Little Rock by L. C. and Daisy Bates between 1941 and 1959. Ironically, in the twenty years following the demise of the State Press, an era that included the civil rights revolution, Arkansas was without a successful black newspaper.

Anyone interested in the history of Afro- Americans, the South and American journalism will find Professor Suggs's volume an extraordi-

narily valuable reference tool.

University of Arkansas Willard B. Gatewood, Jr.

On a Slow Train Through Ar\ansaw. By Thomas W. Jackson. Edited

by W. K. McNeil. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.

Reprint. Originally published: Washington: T. W. Jackson, 1903.

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With new introduction. Pp. xi, 137. Editor's preface, introduction, and notes. $19.00.)

274 ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Since 1976 W. K. McNeil has been associated with the Ozark Folk Center at Mountain View. During this past decade he has achieved a

growing and well-deserved reputation as a scholar and leading authority concerning the folklore and traditions of Arkansas and the rural South. The publication of a new edition of T. W. Jackson's 1903 bestseller On a Slow Train Through Ar\ansaw will certainly add to McNeil's eminence in the field for he has supplemented that classic with an introduction and notes which alone are worth the price of the book.

Arkansans have always been sensitive to the negative stereotypes of their state, and Slow Train generally has been considered to be a prin- cipal contributor to an unflattering image. That concern should end with McNeil's edition of the book because his major achievement has been to put the book in its proper context and to present it as an example of national humor at the turn of the century and not as a studied work of regional denigration. Slow Train could easily have been written about other sections of the country. In fact, Arkansas and its citizenry are de-

cidedly peripheral to what is essentially a compendium of jokes, tall tales, and one-liners that were culled from a variety of sources, including folk stories, vaudeville, and minstrel shows. Viewed in this light, the book becomes a valuable resource for the study of popular culture and can reveal much about the social mores of the time. Arkansas was really incidental to both the nature and success of the book.

In a brilliant introduction McNeil explains Slow Train's publishing history, the centrality of railroads to the American experience, and the character of the nation's humor at the onset of the twentieth century. The emphasis on ethnic and dialect humor, so offensive to the modern reader, was a comedy staple of vaudeville comedians and something which most Americans found incredibly amusing. Jews, the Irish, Ger- mans, and blacks were the chief comedic targets and Slow Train is filled with examples of ethnic and racial slandering.

Slow Train was written during a time when humor was enjoying a

golden age and when joke books proliferated and humorists like Peter

Finley Dunne and George Ade were considered national treasures. The

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BOOK REVIEWS 275

staple of that humor was word play, the pun. Early farce and melodrama, the minstrel show, and vaudeville were all laced with malapropisms and other forms of word comedy. Slow Train depended greatly upon word confusion and this partly accounts for its amazing popularity. However, with the arrival of the movies and later television, visual humor gradu- ally replaced the spoken variety although radio continued the oral tradi- tion. Slow Train marked the end of an era, not a beginning.

There will be no need for another edition of Slow Train for the fore- seeable future. McNeil has produced a scholarly and informative work which is more important than its title suggests. It is a job well done.

University of Arkansas Timothy P. Donovan

Claude A. Swanson of Virginia: A Political Biography. By Henry C. Ferrell, Jr. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1985. Pp. 294. Preface, notes, index, and photographs. $28.00.)

From the late nineteenth century to the 1960s Virginia was dominated

by an overlapping series of five senatorial grandees, their power resting on a foundation common to other southern states: a racism and elitism that politically excluded most blacks and poorer whites, a public philos- ophy which severely limited government services, and careful attention to the state's major economic interests. If required, they would even

espouse reform. Swanson occupies the middle position chronologically on this list, preceded by John W. Daniel and Thomas S. Martin, survived

by Carter Glass and Harry F. Byrd. Ideologically, however, Ferrell locates him on the left of a not very broad spectrum.

Swanson's career was long and distinguished. He served seven terms in the United States House of Representatives (1893-1906), one term as

governor of Virginia (1906-1910), and twenty-two years in the Senate before closing out his life as secretary of the navy (1933-1939). In every arena he acted with great energy and eflf ectiveness, a major figure in state and national politics for nearly fifty years, paralleling in important ways the career of his contemporary, Joseph T. Robinson, with whom he worked closely. This biography will help to resurrect his reputation.

Professor Ferrell, of East Carolina University, argues that Swanson

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