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Slave Ship: A Human History

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading Marcus Rediker's The Slave Ship: A Human History in dribs and drabs. Actually, I have been listening to the unabridged version available through Audible, but I say it counts.

I've been dancing around this book for a while because I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. On one hand, it has been enormously useful for me in thinking about death at sea and the role of terror in capitalist production. On the other, I am slightly uncomfortable with the porn-y aspect of Rediker's efforts to linger on the violence of the slave ships. I suppose Rediker would say that my discomfort is a good thing — he laments the "violence of abstraction" that characterizes much of the literature on slavery.

Yet, I think that the way in which he recovers the horrific violence of the slave ship is in some measures sensationalist and lurid. Since Rediker relies heavily on ship's manifests, court documents, and the testimony of sailors, his descriptions of violence are episodic and include detailed descriptions of torture and suffering, but few opportunities for readers to become attached to particular victims. Such is the nature of the sources —Africans flash in and out of the book as writhing, wretched, ruined bodies, as if they were illuminated by lightning strikes. We gape in horror at their anguish, but we do not know them. This structure supports Rediker's main thesis — that violence/terror is intrinsic to capitalist production and that the slave ship is the heart of that process laid bare — but it does its own kind of violence. Rediker's crazy quilt of horrors skirts the line between educational and lecherous.

John Winthrop: Mountaineer

My copy of John Winthrop's journal just arrived from Amazon. I realize that the publisher probably did not have to pay a lot for this photo, but I'm not sure that that should be the only criterion for cover art. The only possible connection I can make is "City Upon a Hill," but that is a big stretch. There wasn't a generic ocean picture available?

Google Books Fingers

I found another one!

The American Way of Death Revisited

I have been reading Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death Revisited, which is an amusing investigation of the American funeral industry. It was originally published in 1963 and underwent a minor revision/updating in 1995.

Mitford's main point is that 20th-century American funeral homes and cemeteries are run by often unscrupulous businessmen who are always looking for new ways to make Americans pay more for their services. These tactics include insisting upon embalming, upselling grieving families on elaborate caskets, and misrepresenting the laws, religious requirements, and traditions related to the disposal of corpses. She argues that "a new mythology, essential to the twentieth-century American funeral rite, has grown up — or rather has been built up step by step — to justify the peculiar customs surrounding the disposal of the dead" (16). The purpose of this new mythology is to convince families that a "decent" funeral is an expensive funeral, even when the deceased has expressed his or her preference for simplicity and thrift.

In general, I found this to be an entertaining read, though a bit scattered. I'm not sure if the original was smoother, but the revised edition has bits tacked on in strange places that make the organization haphazard. Still, it is an enlightening tour through the American funeral industry that manages to be quite funny in places. Mitford covers everything from the setup of casket showrooms to the embalming process to the tactic of "pre-need" selling of cemetery plots. I particularly enjoyed her chapter on "Fashions in Funerals" and will be recommending it as a reading for the undergraduate course I am currently working on.

In a few places, I was struck by Mitford's tendency to contrast modern corruption with a golden age of funerals past. She looks fondly back to an age of "simplicity to the point of starkness, the plain pine box" that were the "hallmarks of the traditional American funeral until the end of the nineteenth century" and hopes that "the American public is becoming sickened by ever more ornate and costly funerals" (16, 19). I chuckled a bit when I read that because it reminded me so forcefully of Cotton Mather, who decried the "Expence of Funerals, which often proves the Ruine of Family's" way back in 1713. That's not to say that Mitford doesn't have a valid point about the expense of modern funerals, but Americans have been anxious over funerary opulence and its consequences for some time. Mather was chiefly concerned that the mourners use the funeral to reflect on their own mortality, but he also worried about costs.

Ovid at Copp's Hill

I always enjoy finding out what early New Englanders were reading by seeing what they quote on their gravestones.

While searching through the Farber Collection recently, I happened across the Joseph Farnum stone from Copp's Hill (1678), which features a quotation from Ovid's Metamorphoses:

In English, it says something along the lines of, "But indeed, one must ever wait for the last day of a man's life, and call no one happy until he is dead and buried."

Victorian Gender Pronouns

I recently read Kate Summerscale's intriguing The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher for the class I'm tutoring. It's a great read and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Victorian England, detective fiction, or the beginnings of modern law enforcement.

The book concerns the 1860 murder of 3-year-old Saville Kent, a crime that captured the attention of the nation and inspired the genre of Victorian detective fiction.

One peculiar thing that caught my attention was the tendency of all of the participants — family members, neighbors, detectives, reporters — to refer to the murdered child as "it," as in, "Its little head fell almost off" (pg. 17) or

the child has woke and recognised its Father that the Father through Fear of an Exposure in the Family strangled it in the Room after the Nurse Maid had gone to sleep that  he there carried it to the Closet and cut the Throat (pg. 166).

The use of a gender-neutral pronoun does not seem to indicate that the speaker wished to dehumanize young Saville. Rather, the widespread usage makes me think that Victorians considered a 3-year-old to be more of a gender-neutral child than a gender-specific boy or girl. A few of the court records and press reports do call Saville a boy, but most call him a child and use gender-neutral pronouns.

I can't imagine calling a modern 3-year-old it without being punched by its mother. We talk about infants and toddlers in very strongly gendered language from birth, if not earlier. We dress them in gender-specific clothing and provide them with gender-specific toys. Despite our apparent return to some elements of Victorian mourning culture, a wide gulf separates us on this issue.

Mehetabel Blanchard and the Aeneid

Could the mystery gravestone in Malden be a footstone?

Footstones usually bear the deceased person's initials or name and, rarely, the year. Some footstones are a bit wordier.

Example:
Mehetable Blanchard, d. 1742, Malden, MA

According to the internet, that inscription is lines 606-610 of Book 1 the Aeneid.

In Latin:

In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbrae
lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet,
semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt,
quae me cumque vocant terrae.

In English:

While rivers run to ocean, while on the mountains shadows move over slopes, while heaven feeds the stars, ever shall your honour, your name, and your praises abide, whatever be the lands that summon me!

Joshua Blanchard, Mehetabel's husband, appears to have been a carpenter and, perhaps, a lover of Virgil.

The Shoemaker and the Tea Party

The undergrads in my research seminar are reading Alfred F. Young's The Shoemaker and the Teaparty: Memory and the American Revolution.

I could go on an on about how this is a lovely little book for introducing the subject of historical memory to undergraduates. I could tell you that Young's skillful blending of biography and argument in the first half is a great model for writers embarking on their first research projects. I could rhapsodize at length about the usefulness of this book for exploring the process of nation-making between 1790 and 1830.

Instead, I will chuckle and observe that the titular shoemaker, George Robert Twelves Hewes, had fifteen children. He named the 11th "Eleven Hewes" and the 15th "George Robert Twelves Fifteen Hewes" (called "Fifteen" in everyday situations).

Also, this book, at 207 pages plus an 11-page preface, earns a VPI Grad Student Seal of Approval.

Vast Public Indifference: The Book

Yesterday, Pete presented me with an early birthday gift: the first six months of Vast Public Indifference in book form.

Blogger has partnered with Blog2Print, a company that publishes hard copies of blog posts. The first six months of my blog translates to about 200 pages of text and pictures.

I'm enjoying this book on several levels. First, it's been a lot of fun browsing through posts that I'd forgotten about long ago. It's also interesting to see how the blog developed in its early months — I spent much more time writing about the books I was reading. I feel like I should get back to that a bit.

On top of that, I think this book is a fascinating object — a book made from online content about books. Of course, the book can never be what the blog is. The most glaring difference is the lack of links. It's really a stark illustration of how writing is genre- and context-specific.

If there is a blogger in your life, particularly if he/she is also a lover of books or a skeptic about the permanence of online content, a Blog2Print book would make an excellent gift.

There is one major caveat: the formatting is not great. For posts made in the old Blogger editor, Blog2Print cannot reproduce italics, bold, or block quotes. The printed version is not a reproduction of the blog, but an interpretation of it. I've heard that books made from posts that were created in the new editor are somewhat better.

The Urban Crucible in 247 Pages

Are you aware that there is an abridged edition of Gary Nash's The Urban Crucible?!?

Someone could have told me this 600 pages ago.

Grumblecakes.

Civil War Wives?

This morning, I received an email from Amazon urging me to purchase Carol Berkin's new book, Civil War Wives: The Life and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant.

I suppose that "Civil War Wives" is an apt phrase for the place that Varina Davis and Julia Grant occupy in my mind. But Angelina Grimke? I don't think "wife of Theodore Weld" is among the first things I'd say about her.

Though, I suppose Berkin might investigate the limitations of gender equality within the abolitionist movement, making Grimke-Weld's position as a wife relevant.

It's just a bit of a jarring title.

My Cat is Famous in France

Someone found this old picture of my cat on Pete's Flickr account and used it for the header of some online book reviews. The cat likes to attack me when I am reading, which is all the time.

I wish I were reading something more dignified than "Anne's House of Dreams."

Tiny Books!

I don't have a dollhouse, but I could be persuaded to get one just so I could fill it with tiny books. Miniature Bookshelf has nearly 500 books the size of pennies. Most are classics, but there are a few modern children's best sellers (Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events). I love the vintage covers.

At this point, these are probably the only books I could possibly fit on my shelves.

via Shakesville

What Hath God Wrought

I am one of those people who is ruining American history. When curmudgeons lament the much-exaggerated death of "traditional" history or complain that young scholars only care about sexy minutia, they have me in mind. I'll read any journal article with a title that promises prostitution or infanticide.

That said, I am thoroughly enjoying Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. I didn't expect to feel any affection for a tome on the antebellum period, but the writing is lively and Prof. Howe shares my love of John Quincy Adams (the book is dedicated to Adams). After slogging through Sean Wilentz' fawning Jackson lovefest, I'm tickled to find that Howe's Jackson is a violent, anti-intellectual, petulant demagogue. If I have to read about bank charters and the transportation revolution, I prefer to be entertained, and Howe delivers.

He also does a good job of alternating between politics-heavy chapters and chapters that focus on social, cultural, and technological developments. If I feel myself flagging during a section on monetary policy, I can be comforted by the thought that something closer to my interests is not far off.

If you're looking for a survey of this period, I recommend this one over all the other doorstops and textbooks out there.

Shower of Stars

I haven't posted a book review in a while. This is not because I haven't been reading — I've been reading until my brain feels like mush in preparation for my upcoming oral exams. When I'm done with this mess, I'll need a full year of nothing but movies to reboot.

Among the more enjoyable books I've read in the past month is John J. Pullen's A Shower of Stars: The Medal of Honor and the 27th Maine (1967). I have some nostalgic affection for Pullen because my mother used to read to us from his The 20th Maine when we were children. A Shower of Stars is an entertaining read — the story of one cantankerous historian/journalist's quest to find out why the 27th Maine Volunteer Infantry was awarded 864 Medals of Honor and to track down the surviving medals.

The historical incident is interesting enough. In June of 1863, as the Army of the Potomac attempted to block Lee's advance into Northern territory, many of the 2-year enlistments were running out. Most of the men of the 27th Maine took their discharges and went home, but about 300 agreed to stay past the term of their enlistment in order to guard Washington, D.C. when the rest of the army left town to fight in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Secretary of War Stanton awarded these men Medals of Honor in recognition of their service, but, through a bureaucratic snafu, the medal was issued to all 864 soldiers on the muster rolls. When the medals were struck they were sent to the unit's colonel for distribution, but Colonel Wentworth felt that they had been awarded in error, so he never handed them out. A few men received their medals, but most stayed in boxes in Wenthworth's barn. In 1917, Congress rescinded most of the medals, but left the original 300 in limbo.

That's all well and good, but the real joy of reading A Shower of Stars comes from Pullen. He is a cranky, judgmental bastard and it's delicious. The first two times he assured his reader that little boys should be caned far more often than they typically are, I figured he was probably joking, but it just kept coming up.

Pullen's relentless Whiggishness deplores any historical incident that stands in the way of Progress. He is totally incapable of considering the Civil War-era Medal of Honor on its own terms — any deviation from its WWII incarnation as a combat medal awarded for extreme valor (often posthumously) is an "assault on the integrity of the Medal of Honor." Such travesties include the 27th Main's "shower of stars," along with the 29 medals awarded to Lincoln's funeral guard and Mary Walker's Medal of Honor. He reserves special contempt for Walker, whom he calls "a woman's rights zealot" who joined the army just to stir up trouble. Stanton is a "pernicious" idiot who never gives the Medal of Honor the respect it deserves. Of course, there was no reason for Stanton to adhere to WWII-era standards for awarding the medal, but historical thinking never gets in the way of Pullen's ranting.

Perhaps in other circumstances, I would have been annoyed by this, but I was so glad to be reading a book with personality that I just found it charming.

If you're up for a light summer read, you could do worse than A Shower of Stars. If you're up for it, you can even turn it into a drinking game: drink when Pullen advocates beating children, drink when Pullen says something nasty about Stanton, drink when Pullen uses a synonym for "integrity," etc.

Seduction Novels in the Graveyard

In the new issue of Common-Place, Lisa Gordis writes about the modern audiences that appreciate early American books. At the end of her article, Gordis discusses a visit to the "Charlotte Temple" gravesite in New York's Trinity Churchyard. Of course, Charlotte Temple is a fictional character, so she isn't really buried under the stone that bears her name, but somebody (probably) is. During the 19th century, the gravesite attracted a steady stream of devoted pilgrims.

There is a similar monument in Peabody, MA dedicated to Elizabeth Whitman, whose tragic death inspired Hannah Webster Foster to write The Coquette. As far as I know, it attracts very few visitors.

Bodies Politic

I recently finished reading John Wood Sweet's Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830 (2003). In part, this book is a project of recovery — Sweet points out that while "American came to present itself as a white nation," the reality was that "it was, and had been from the start, diverse, hybrid, and multiracial" (10). His basic argument is that racism in 18th-century New England was not a matter of cultural misunderstanding — in fact, as people of color converted to Christianity and assimilated other aspects of European culture into their daily lives, they found themselves even more reviled by their white neighbors. Over the course of the century, "stubborn, essentialist identities of race . . . supplanted a potentially mutable form of difference — culture" (108). The larger point is one that is often difficult for proud New Englanders to swallow: even though the Civil War pit North against South, the war and its memory "has obscured underlying similarities that derive from a shared legacy of colonialism" (11).

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in American History, particularly if that interest is focused on southern New England. Sweet's title says "the American North," but what he really means is Rhode Island with some eastern Massachusetts and a smattering of Connecticut. That was great for me — I love Rhode Island history —but readers looking for Pennsylvania or Maine will be disappointed.


Bodies Politic is a thick book (409 pages), but an easy read. Sweet employs many engaging vignettes to make his points, which makes this a great book for the casual reader or for the academic looking for some arresting anecdotes for lecture.

The one scene that stayed with me after reading this book was the opening paragraph of Chapter Four:

When Paul Revere set out on his midnight ride in April 1775, one of the first landmarks he passed was the body of a long-dead slave — a figure that represented, no less than the Sons of Liberty themselves, a colonial family drama of abused paternal authority, emasculating enslavement, and rebellion. Revere knew the body by name. Mark's remains, suspended in a metal gibbet overlooking the road, had been greeting travelers for some twenty years — since 1755, when he was hanged. His accomplice, Phillis, was burned at the stake. Their crime had been killing their master, Captain John Codman of Charlestown.

I was already somewhat familiar with the case of Mark and Phillis because all the graduate students have been talking about Blindspot lately, but I hadn't really assimilated the image of the gibbet into my mental picture of late colonial Boston. When I think heads on spikes or bodies suspended near the road, I'm thinking 17th-century Ireland or the Caribbean, not Stamp Act-era Boston. You won't see any gibbets in the John Adams miniseries, that's for sure. Now, I have adjusted the image in my mind, though I can't quite imagine what a 20-year-old exposed corpse looks like. Blanched bones? Strips of ragged cloth? A pile of dust?

Google Books Finger Watch

I caught one!

Readings in the History of Disease

After last night's post, I thought I should recommend a few good reads on the topic of epidemics and disease in early America. I also want to try out my new Amazon Associate membership. I'm not really looking to make any money (very unlikely), but I like the look of links I've seen on other blogs.

This isn't the first time I've recommended Elizabeth Fenn's Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (2001). The best thing about this book is its broad geographical sweep. Too often, "early America" means "New England" (I'm guilty of contributing to this), but Fenn traces the epidemic from Canada to Mexico, Atlantic to Pacific, and everywhere in between. Her writing is clear and concise, making Pox Americana a great book for undergraduates and the general public.

One of my absolute favorite books about the history of disease is Jennifer Lee Carrell's The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox (2004). While some of the Amazon reviewers did not enjoy its structure, I loved the way Carrell braided together the stories of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston as both fought for inoculation. Reading her description of victims in the throes of confluent smallpox makes you marvel at what the human body can endure and (sometimes) survive.

Another good one is The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (2006) by Steven Johnson. It deals with a cholera epidemic, the miasma theory of disease, and sanitation in mid-19th-century London. It's good stuff and it sometimes reads like a thriller. I haven't had a chance to read Johnson's new book — The Invention of Air — but I'm looking forward to it.

Other books I haven't read, but am hoping to:

• The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby
• The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry