Boynton, Henry V.  The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged
Crunk, T. New Covenant Bound
Eubanks, Georgann. Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont: A Guidebook
Heller, J. Roderick, III.  Democracy’s Lawyer: Felix Grundy of The Old Southwest
Melosi, Martin.  The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Environment.
Mitchell, Joe and Whit Gibbons. Salamanders of the Southeast
Pen, Ron. I Wonder As I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles
Sicherman, Barbara. Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired A Generation Of American Women

Boynton, Henry V.  (2010). The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged.  With a new introduction by Timothy B. Smith.  Knoxville, TN : University of Tennessee Press.  152 pages. ISBN 9781572336940.

Timothy B. Smith, PhD., Lecturer at the University of Tennessee-Martin, provides the introduction to this reprint of Henry V. Boynton’s The Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga and the Organizations Engaged.   The introduction provides background on the movement to establish the National Military Parks; the balance of the content comprises a reprint of Henry V. Boynton’s work.  The aim of this book is to provide an account of these battles and those involved.  Boynton illustrates the significance of these battles, relating the importance that control of Chattanooga played in controlling the entire Southeast .

Timothy Smith has written many books on the Civil War and the establishment of the National Military Parks, including A Chickamauga Memorial: The Establishment of America’s First Civil War National Military Park.   Given this background, Dr. Smith is able to place Henry V. Boynton, the author of the work, in historical context.  Henry V. Boynton commanded the 35th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in these battles.  In later years he became a newspaper reporter of national renown, covering national politics for the Cincinnati Gazette.  During his time as a journalist, he became an associate of President Rutherford B. Hayes and other national figures.  He investigated many of the major political scandals of the post-Civil War period; his tenacity as a reporter won him many friends and enemies.  Boynton’s greatest passion, however, was for battlefield preservation.  He formed the Chickamauga Memorial Association, and when Congress established the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Boynton became the park’s first historian. 

The volume is comprised of three major parts:  The Campaign for Chattanooga, The Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, and Battles About Chattanooga, Tennessee.  The book includes several photographs of Boynton, maps of the battle fields, and numerous charts.  Each section of the work includes an index of the units engaged on both sides, with each entry referencing a page where the unit is described in detail.  These detailed pages describe the makeup of the units, and the role played by that division in the battle. 
Rather than dealing with the philosophical or political aspects of the Civil War, this book deals with the story of a military campaign; it is a story of strategy, tactics, and movement.  One account refers to how a commander used deception to protect his forces, leaving tents staked and fires burning while the unit relocated under cover of darkness to a more advantageous position. 

This book is recommended for public, high school, and academic libraries.  As the use of military terminology is not excessive, this should be an accessible book for some high school children, as well as all college students and most of the general public.  History teachers and instructors will probably find this book of greater utility than will students.  By virtue of his experience, Boynton makes a unique contribution to the history of this area with this brief volume.  This would be useful reference material for history teachers and instructors, as well as Civil War enthusiasts.

J. Michael Lindsay, Serials/E Resources Librarian
Preston Medical Library
JMLindsay@mc.utmck.edu 

Crunk, T. (2010). New Covenant Bound. Lexington, KY : University Press of Kentucky. 95 pages. ISBN 0813125995.

As Crunk explains in the Memoriam of New Covenant Bound, tens of thousands of families were relocated by the federal government to make way for waters, controlled by electricity dams built throughout Tennessee and Kentucky, from the 1935 to 1969. Over those years, the stories of generations have gathered and dispersed as family members have left and returned to various homesteads. Crunk’s mixture of prose and poetry paint a portrait of one fictional family, from the moment the Tennessee Valley Authority announced their intention to the pilgrimage of a grandson back to the place of his ancestors, now covered by the flood.

According to his website, Crunk is originally from Kentucky, near the places mentioned in New Covenant Bound. The Dedication of the book includes the names of people whose tales became a composite of feelings and events inspiring each piece.  Through stoic and honest words, which relate the yarn of events, emotion rings a collective truth of loss and homesickness. Through colorful turns of phrase, like

            “Our only sin was being born where we were. And not giving up on a land that
            often spited us.
            Our only sin was not having what they thought was enough. And being forced to
            take what they called help.”,

Crunk carries the reader into a world of hard-working earthy people forced to live a different life in a strange land, only miles away from where their ancestors were born and died.

As with most traditional gospel songbooks, this book of poetry includes an Index of titles and first lines, which helps jog a reader’s memory for a particular piece.

Crunk intends the audience of this work to be or become familiar with those kinds of traditions, which belonged to the people, who witnessed the good and bad consequences of the TVA’s plans. The Memoriam states facts for those too young to remember personally and the story-poems weave hints of yellow rose trellises, clay too hard to farm, and rural preachers across generations. Between memories and statistics, the reader relives the reality of the experience as spoken by people who were there.

Crunk is the 1994 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize winner, as well as the Alabama Writers’ Forum writer-in-residence and author of multiple collections. Public, academic, and special libraries who are interested in 20th century Southern culture would benefit from adding this book to their collection. Although written in poetry, it is an accurate description of history, which influenced many citizens’ lives and can be remembered each time they flip a light switch and watch the bulb glow.

Christi Underdown-DuBois, Asst. Cataloger,
Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University
underdow@mtsu.edu

 

Eubanks, Georgann. (2010). Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont: A Guidebook.
Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 416 pages. ISBN 9780807859797.

This regional literary guide to the Piedmont Region of North Carolina (the middle region of the state) takes the reader on a tour through the places and settings that influenced North Carolina writers. From pastoral landscapes to urban settings, farming communities, mill towns, cemeteries, churches, and plantations, the reader finds herself immersed in these places where writers have lived and worked.

This is the second in a series of regional literary guides. The author is one of the founders of the North Carolina Writers’ Network and is a past chair of the North Carolina Humanities Council and writes with authority about North Carolina writers. Her conversational writing style made me feel like she was beside me, walking along city streets or visiting a famous hotel. After reading through this book, I’m confident that if I were to take an actual tour, I could find everything listed in this book and have a good time doing so.

The book is divided into two trails: the western Piedmont and the eastern Piedmont. There are eighteen tours to follow, 11 on the first trail, and 7 on the second. Maps at the beginning of each tour help the reader place herself into the context of the area being examined. At the end of each tour, there is a short Literary Landscape, which lists bookstores, libraries and cultural centers that can be found in the area.

This is an excellent resource that doesn’t limit itself to simply listing where writers lived and worked in the North Carolina Piedmont. It’s also a history of the areas in question, and links key social events to works written either about those events or about people influenced by those events, whether it be nonfiction or fiction. There is enough detail to lend an air of authenticity, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming. One prominent theme throughout is writers writing about segregation and Jim Crow laws.

Highlights of the book include Wake Forest University, where Maya Angelou studied. Their Reynolds Library houses the Maya Angelou Film and Theater Collection. Mount Airy is the childhood home of Andy Griffith and was the inspiration for Mayberry. While there, you can see the Andy Griffith Collection and visit Floyd’s Barbershop. Mount Airy is also where Chang and Eng Bunker (known as the original Siamese twins) were born, and where their grave site is located. Numerous books have been written about them, including a story by Mark Twain.

Gastonia is the site of the Loray Mill, where at least six novels were published about its famous labor strike, including one by Sherwood Anderson. And then there’s the Carolina Coffee Shop in Franklin, where David Sedaris once washed dishes.

Recommended for academic libraries and for anyone with an interest in writers and the places that influenced them.

Sandy Orr, Non-Print Cataloger
University of Tennessee at Martin
sorr@utm.edu

 

Heller, J. Roderick, III. (2010). Democracy’s Lawyer: Felix Grundy of the Old Southwest. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. 384 pages. ISBN 9780807135884.

In the first comprehensive biography of nineteenth century lawyer and politician Felix Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller tells the story of a dynamic leader who played a part in establishing democracy in Kentucky and Tennessee. Heller, a descendent of Grundy and a graduate of Harvard Law School, holds a graduate degree in history from Harvard and is the CEO of a Washington, D.C. investment firm.

Born in Virginia, Felix Grundy (1777-1840) moved with his family at age five to the area that later became Kentucky, Grundy grew to become a successful lawyer and chief justice, known for his wit, affability, and dynamic oratory. As a state legislator, Grundy fought for egalitarian access to land, banking capital, and the courts, taking a strong stance against federalist practices that favored elite capitalists.

By the time Grundy moved to Nashville in 1808, he was well known for his political and legal activity in Kentucky. His legal practice grew until Grundy was known as one of the most famous criminal lawyers in the southwest. As a congressman from Tennessee, Grundy was an important member of the “War Hawks” who pushed for the War of 1812.

Grundy went on to serve as a Tennessee senator at a time when America was struggling to resolve issues of states’ rights and to define the union. A reformer, Grundy continued to argue for the same principles throughout his career, including minimal government and legislative authority. A supporter and confidant of Andrew Jackson, Grundy worked with leaders such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. James K. Polk read law with Grundy and was later Grundy’s political protégé. An examination of Grundy provides insight not only into local and state politics of the day, but contributes to a more complete picture of American history as a whole.

Heller has divided his book into five sections, covering Grundy’s frontier roots, his time in Kentucky and Tennessee, and his career as a Jacksonian senator and Democratic party leader. The book is thorough without being weighed down by unnecessary detail or lengthy explanations. Ten pages of illustrations enhance the reader’s experience. One minor omission is a timeline of important events in Grundy’s life and career. Though not essential, a timeline would have been a useful reference for readers.

In researching Felix Grundy, Heller had access to primary sources not available to Grundy’s first biographer, Joseph Parks. The extensive selected bibliography begins with an essay describing significant Grundy collections and their locations. Grundy himself left little written correspondence or personal records. Heller however, appears to have been thorough in searching collections related to Grundy’s friends and political contemporaries. As expected, the book includes notes and an index.

Democracy’s Lawyer should appeal to readers interested in Tennessee or Kentucky history, as well as to students of early American history. The book is recommended for public and academic libraries.

Kristen West, Assistant Professor and Instruction Librarian
Middle Tennessee State University
kwest@mtsu.edu

Melosi, Martin. (2007). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Environment. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 320 pages. ISBN 978-0-8078-5856-1.

In 1989 the University of Mississippi’s Center for Southern Culture published to much acclaim the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, a one-volume, 1634-page reference book under the general editorship of Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris. In revising this now 20-year-old tome, the editors wisely decided to publish each section of the original Encyclopedia as a separate volume with all the articles that first appeared in the original, updated or revised to reflect recent scholarship. According to the editors, “production of the volumes is being staggered, with four to six volumes being published each year. The entire collection will contain 24 volumes; the first ten volumes--Religion, Geography, History, Myth, Manners & Memory, Language, Ethnicity, Foodways, Environment, Law and Politics, Literature, Agriculture and Industry, Music, and Gender--have been published.”

Volume 8: Environment, “explores the environmental complexity of the regions within the South” (xvii) in ninety-eight essays. These are arranged alphabetically in two groups. The first are general overviews of such topics as Animals, Birds and Birding (a topic not included in the original 1989 volume), Invasive and Alien Species (think kudzu), Pollution and Wetlands. The second group of essays, shorter and more specific, deals with topics such as Armadillo, Blue Ridge Mountains, Mammoth Cave National Park and Spanish Moss.

An essay by volume editor Martin Melosi, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Houston, opens the volume, as it did the “Environment” section of the 1989 original. There are very few changes to this essay, a fact that makes one curious about just what changes exist between the old and “New” encyclopedias. In investigating this, I find that the “Air Conditioning” essay that opened the first group of general essays in the original volume, now opens the second group of shorter, more specific essays in the New Encyclopedia. And to nit-pick further, I notice that although the essay is exactly, word-for-word the same in both books, the bibliography following “Air Conditioning” now includes two works not included in the original.

Updating of the original becomes more obvious with references to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and its environmental impact on the region, as well as the inclusion of the essay on birding in this new volume.

As in any large work of this scope, inaccuracies are bound to occur. For example, the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, is written Sea Island National Wildlife Refuge (p. 259) in the essay on the Outer Banks. Whereas in the one-volume original the essays were followed by “See Also” references, that is not possible in this separate-volume series. And so one wonders if a general index to the entire set might be either published separately or included in the final volume, making easy for readers to know that the essay on the Outer Banks is in the Environment volume, rather than in – or perhaps in addition to – the Geography volume, and thereby making it a much more useful reference tool.

But all this is does not diminish the value of this authoritative reference as the source of a broad range of topics on the southern environment and an excellent starting point for not only the general reader, but also any researcher, whether a middle school or graduate level student.

The section on the Tennessee Valley Authority should be a must-read for any resident of this state, as should the pieces on kudzu – deemed so important that not only is much attention given to it in the “Invasive and Alien Species” section of general essays, but it also rates a section of its own among the more specific essay topics. So too the Live Oak, the Magnolia, the Cypress and the Flowering Dogwood among the flora, Alligators and Crocodiles, Catfish and the Florida Panther among the fauna, the Atchafalaya Basin Swamp, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Outer Banks, among the places, and Benjamin Franklin Chavez Muhammad, Walter Inglis Anderson and William Bertram, among the people – all with a role in some aspect of the environment of the South. And while there seems no obvious criteria for inclusion or exclusion of topics – why the crocodile and not chiggers? – so much information is included that one can spend many hours just browsing through this volume just for leisure reading.

This volume on the environment of the southern region is highly recommended for all types of libraries, as will be, I feel sure, the succeeding volumes in the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

Penny Frere
Tenn-Share
tennshare@bellsouth.net

Mitchell, Joe and Whit Gibbons. (2010) Salamanders of the Southeast. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 336 pages. ISBN 9780820330358.

Seventeen percent of the world’s salamanders live in the southeastern United States; they’ve been a part of the ecosystem since before dinosaurs roamed. Yet most salamanders living in the region go unseen, because of the salamander’s inclination to remain hidden. For this reason alone, Salamanders of the Southeast is a treasure: It vividly captures 102 species of salamanders found in the Southeast, informing of their appearance, habitats, development, behaviors, conservation, and geographic distribution.

Salamanders display a wide range of striking coloration, which is beautifully featured in the hundreds of color photographs contained in the book. After opening with a thorough introduction to the biology of the salamander, the bulk of the book presents detailed information about the various species. Several pages are devoted to each species, including physical characteristics, maps showing where the species can be found, interesting facts, and numerous photographs. Boxes with quick facts about body shape, size, color, and patterns help the reader quickly discern the differences between the various waterdogs, sirens, hellbenders, newts, and other types of salamanders. The attractive layout and clear writing make the text easy to read. While the book includes scientific names and terms, these are clearly defined (either in-text or in the glossary), making the text suited to the general public. The book closes with a section about the study of salamanders and conservation issues, followed by a chart showing in which states each salamander species is found. Separate indexes are included for scientific names and common names.

Authors Mitchell and Gibbons are both experts in ecology. Mitchell is a certified senior ecologist with the Ecological Society of America, owner of Mitchell Ecological Research Services, and the author of The Reptiles of Virginia and Atlas of Amphibians and Reptiles in Virginia. Gibbons is a professor of ecology emeritus at the University of Georgia, head of the Environmental Outreach and Educational Program at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, and author or co-author of more than a dozen ecology books. In Salamanders of the Southeast, they have presented an intriguing glimpse at this secretive amphibian.

Salamanders of the Southeast is one of several recent works by the University of Georgia Press covering amphibians in the region; other books discuss frogs and toads, lizards and crocodilians, snakes, and turtles. Informative and comprehensive, this book is highly recommended for secondary school, public, and academic libraries. 

Jerianne Thompson, Collection Development Coordinator
Linebaugh Public Library System
jthompson@linebaugh.org
 

Pen, Ron. (2010). I Wonder As I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. 408 pages. ISBN 0813125979.

Most readers will recognize the title of this book as an allusion to a much-loved Christmas song, which is generally understood to be traditional, but which in fact is largely the composition of John Jacob Niles (1892-1980). Ron Pen, an associate professor of music at the University of Kentucky and director of that university’s Appalachian Studies Program, examines in this definitive biography the way in which Niles—a popular performer known as the “Dean of American Balladeers”—tried to satisfy the sometimes-competing, even contradictory, demands of authenticity and musicality.

Niles was still a teenager when he began collecting songs in the countryside near his native Louisville. At the same time he had opportunities as a pianist and singer to participate in the rich musical life of the city, with its many vaudeville and minstrel shows, and was stage-struck as a result. For all of Niles’s loyalty to the ballad as an expression of a mythical Appalachian ideal, he seems not to have been content to leave it as he found it. Instead, his finds provided raw material that he shaped according to his own musical sense and to prevailing tastes in concert music and popular entertainment.

In this way, Niles collected material from mountain singers, often working through the Pine Mtn. Settlement School in Kentucky or the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina.  He then fleshed out their tunes –or, as often, re-wrote them—with piano accompaniments in a style influenced, among others, by French composer Vincent d’Indy (with whom Niles had studied in Paris following his service as a pilot in WWI).
Similarly, when Niles decided that the lap dulcimer was better than the piano for accompanying ballads, he solved the problem of the traditional dulcimer’s low volume by making a supersized dulcimer from a cello and increasing the number of strings from three to eight.

Niles’s collections of songs, published by the prestigious New York music publishing house G. Schirmer, established his reputation as a proponent of the ballad and contributed to his success as a performer and recording artist. Niles maintained an active performing career right up to the end of his life. He performed numerous times at the White House and was in the lineup at the inaugural Newport Folk Festival in 1959.
This book is a valuable addition to the literature on the history of American popular music.  In a tradition that stretches from the Walker/White shape note compilations through Bob Dylan, Niles is illustrative of the kind of musical performer/entrepreneur who comes along every now and then with a vision that shapes our definition of American music. 

(While the book succeeds quite well in describing Niles’s performance style, readers owe it to themselves to find Niles on Youtube. He appears in white tie and tails, cradles his supersized dulcimer like a baby, and wails in a piercing falsetto. Description only goes so far.)

This book is especially appropriate for academic libraries and public libraries with developed collections in Appalachian culture. It is also a good acquisition for collections that focus on more general aspects of the creation of popular culture.

Jud Barry
Bristol Public Library
judbarry@bristol-library.org

Sicherman, Barbara. (2010). Well-Read Lives: How Books Inspired A Generation of American Women. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 400 pages. ISBN 0807833088.

Sicherman’s meticulously researched and documented work is an essential addition to any academic library. It is a book about women of the progressive era, what they read, and how it influenced them and their directions in life. Recognizable names such as M. Carey Thomas, Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells are included, but notably she also writes about underprivileged women, immigrants, and African Americans. It is a remarkable work of scholarship that will greatly contribute to the historiography of American women. 
Sicherman begins by examining the novel Little Women. Imagine the impact that Jo March, the novel’s “feisty tomboy heroine,” had on young women of the Gilded Age. For the privileged classes Alcott’s story provided hope for achieving a purposeful, autonomous life. For some immigrant women it provided a model for becoming American and middle class. While Little Women was more accessible to the privileged, women of all classes found their way to this book and others, often through their public libraries.

Women of the comfortable classes organized their first clubs around reading, some of which moved from a focus on culture to social reform and took up causes like suffrage, immigration, and settlement houses. M. Carey Thomas, the feminist president of Bryn Mawr College, was absorbed by books as a girl, often emulating Jo March in her diary. After college she joined a feminist literary circle called “The Friday Night” and together the group of friends explored avant-garde ideas such as the validity of Christianity and the sacredness of marriage. Similarly, Jane Addams grew up aspiring to become cultured through literature but after graduating from college questioned what good it was if not applied to some useful purpose. Of course, she went on to found Hull House, the great settlement house in Chicago that, in turn, helped generations of women become literate.

The last third of the book examines the reading lives of less privileged women, the working class, immigrants, and African Americans. For many women access to public education and libraries became symbols of what it meant to be an American citizen. For Jewish women in particular, who traditionally were not educated, literacy equaled liberation, not only as Jews in a new land but as women. For African American women literacy brought the generations together in unique ways, often by children teaching their parents how to read. Ida B. Wells also read Little Women but noted, “I had never read a Negro book or anything about Negroes.” (224). She herself remedied the situation by becoming an internationally known journalist and anti-lynching crusader and writing her autobiography.

With amazing detail and insight Sicherman offers a glimpse into the reading lives of these women and many more. Well-Read Lives is a truly unique study of Progressive Era women, beautifully written and documented with almost one hundred pages of notes, which no doubt will aid future researchers to better understand American women of the period. Sicherman is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American Institutions and Values, Emerita, at Trinity College. She is author of Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters and co-editor of Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Well-Read Lives is an essential addition to any academic library but especially those supporting women’s studies programs.

Jenny Rushing, Coordinator of Reference Services
Belmont University
Jenny.rushing@belmont.edu