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Show UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY that you should be enjoying it so much, this book will bring you comfort. If you are a budding cowboy poet, or one "who has been writing and reciting for years, this book will have something for you. If you are an English major or a "real poet" who thinks cowboy poetry is just doggerel, this book may give you some new insight. A folklorist will definitely want this book on the shelf. By the time you are through, you may even want to write a poem yourself. KENT PETERSON Ferron, Utah BOOK NOTICES Out of the Black Patch: The Autobiography ofEffie Marquess Carmack - Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer Edited by Noel A. Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1999. xviii + 398 pp. Cloth, $59.95; paper, $29.95.) When Effie Carmack wrote an autobiography for her grandchildren, she intentionally wrote not only memoir but also folk history. Her manuscript, which recounts the narratives and folkways of life in Kentucky's "Black Patch," has almost an anthropologist's eye for details. Those details, which are told in a charming and easy voice, are made more compelling by the affection with which Carmack recalls the scenes, people, and stories of her childhood. Published as part of Utah State University Press's series Life Writings of Frontier Women, the book contains an introduction and annotations, photographs, and a list of Carmack's song and rhyme repertoire (she collected and performed a repertoire of more than 300 songs she had learned in Kentucky). Carmack's manuscript recounts her family's conversion by LDS missionaries and her life as wife and mother, which she largely spent away from Kentucky in the West. And it tells of her life as a painter of some renown. But the heart of the book is in the sights, smells, characters, and happenings of rural nineteenth-century Kentucky. Hollywood the Hard Way: A Cowboy's Journey By Patti Dickinson (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. xviii + 222 pp. Paper, $13.95.) In 1945 Jerry Van Meter's grandpa and his friend make a bet with cowboy actor Jimmy Wakely that the time of gritty, old-time cowboying is not dead-and Jerry gets to prove it. Grandpa wagers that his sixteen-year-old grand- 370 BOOK NOTICES son can ride a horse, alone, from Oklahoma to Hollywood in fifty days. That's 1,250 miles over plains, mountains, and deserts. What do you do when you learn that someone has committed you to seven grueling weeks on horseback? In Jerry's case, after a few weeks of preparation, he saddled up a tough Osage Indian pony and headed west. Relying mainly on oral accounts and fifty-year-old memories, this narrative must be called a tale, not a history. But it is an interesting tale, and it has something to say about the era as it follows Jerry into small towns and small cafes with their helpful characters and talkative waitresses-and, of course, it takes horse and rider across a landscape that could at the time still be negotiated by hoof. (Actually, in order to save his weary horse, Jerry walked across the Mojave Desert in a nonstop march that nearly killed them both.) Of course, the book also has a thing or two to say about cowboy pride and grit. The Apache Diaries: A Father-Son Journey By Grenville Goodwin and Neil Goodwin (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. xx + 316 pp. $29.95.) Grenville Goodwin was an anthropologist, largely untrained but now recognized for the quality of his work, who specialized in the Western Apaches. He became fascinated with a band of Apaches who remained hidden in the Sierra Madre long after Geronimo s surrender in 1886; this band had murdered a Mexican woman and her child in 1927, and the husband's campaign of revenge had become big news. In 1930 Grenville set out to learn all he could about this group, searching out and studying their abandoned campsites while at the same time they no doubt studied him from their hiding places. Neil never knew his father, who died of a brain tumor three months after the birth of his son. But in 1962 Neil discovered Grenville's diaries of his search for the reclusive band. Recognizing the ethnographic and historical importance of the diaries, and the interest of the story they told, Neil set out to flesh out history and narrative-and his own limited knowledge of his father. He did this by retracing his father's journeys. His own diary of this search weaves together the area's history, the stories of the hated Apaches and the Mexicans and Mormons, his father's story, and his own story of discovery. The interplay of the two diaries makes for a fine, multi-layered narrative. 371 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Westward the Immigrants: Italian Adventurers and Colonists in an Expanding America By Andrew Rolle (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1999. xxxiv + 391 pp. Paper, $24.95.) This pioneering "work was first published as The Immigrant Upraised: Italian Adventurers and Colonists in an Expanding America by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1968. Author Andrew Rolle tackled the task of tracing Italian immigration into the American West, broadly defined as the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River. Rolle's main objectives centered on illustrating an Italian presence in the West and showing that, in the main, irnrriigrant experiences were positive, highlighted by optimism and a sense of opportunity. The latter thesis rang as a counter to the then widely held assumption, developed by historian Oscar Handlin, that immigrants were basically uprooted individuals largely confined to eastern ghettos and steeped in pessimism. The 1999 edition, basically the same as that of 1968, adds only a new preface to recognize that work on the subject has uncovered new particulars. For Rolle, the research done to date by various scholars only solidifies his early assertions. He makes specific references to the study of Italians in Utah. The book offers some good insights into the activities of Italians in the West, but most readers may regret that the author did not choose to update his work. Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Bear River, 29 January 1863 By Robert S. McPherson (Riverton: Utah National Guard, 2000. vi + 81 pp.) A "staff ride" is a study of a military campaign that includes both documentary and onsite learning. Intended to further the development of U. S. Army personnel, staff rides provide case studies into various aspects of battle and "war. This compact volume on the Bear River Massacre uses narrative along with various documents to set the stage for and recount the events of the massacre. Most of the documents, which include first- and second-hand accounts, newspaper stories, and military reports, naturally favor the Anglo point of view, but one- an account compiled by Shoshone historian Mae Parry-gives another perspective. The book includes helpful maps and photos. The University of Utah: 150 Years of Excellence By Craig Denton (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000. 212 pp. $34.95.) "This book is not a history," writes the author, a communications professor. "Unlike those earlier works that the University compiled about itself, this one focuses on the present and tries to peek into the future." The coffee-table 372 BOOK NOTICES volume, splashed with both modern and historical photos, is an insider's fond look at the University. In fact, many references will make sense only to those who are familiar with the institution and its past. The reader who does not want to see warts or controversy but only wants to enjoy a gentle celebration of the "U" will be pleased with this offering. Covered Wagon Women, Volume 10: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1875- 1883 Edited by Kenneth L. Holmes (Reprint ed.; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 288 pp. Paper, $13.00.) The last in a series of paperback reprints, this volume includes an introduction by Elliott West. The documents in this book were written when the overland journey had been dramatically transformed by the railroad, the decimation of the bison, the grazing of emigrant cattle herds, and the felling of trees. Yet, as West writes, "Perhaps the most striking feature of the ten volumes...is the consistency of a distinctly women's perspective and experience across these decades of upheaval and transformation." In any decade of the western migration, women's responsibilities remained largely the same: washing, mending, caring for children, cooking, bedmaking, nursing. And for all of the women the West was a new experience, full of trials at times and pleasures at others. Sharlot Hall on the Arizona Strip: A Diary of a Journey through Northern Arizona in 1911 Edited by C. Gregory Crampton (Reprint ed.; Prescott, Arizona: Sharlot Hall Museum, 1999. 112 pp. Paper, $14.95.) Writer, poet, adventurer, and historian, Sharlot Hall was so well-known in Arizona that she was appointed the first territorial historian. In that office she diligently traveled the territory, collected oral histories, and wrote historical accounts. She visited the Arizona Strip, traveling with a guide, a horse, and a wagon in the late summer of 1911. One goal of her visit was to get ammunition for her campaign against Utah's proposed annexation of that area. The trip took 75 days and covered a thousand miles, including visits to Tuba City and the Hopi villages, Lee's Ferry, Fredonia, and the North Rim. Writing about these for an Arizona magazine, she gave enthusiastic reports of resources, accounts of difficult traveling, and descriptions of people and towns. However, the narratives stop there. Personal difficulties prevented her writing about the rest of the journey-Kanab, Pipe Springs, southwestern Utah, and the Mt. Trumbull area. 373 UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Photo Odyssey: Solomon Carvalho's Remarkable Western Adventure, 1853-54 By Arlene B. Hirschfelder (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. $17.00.) Carvalho, the photographer "who accompanied John C. Fremont's fifth expedition, made more than 300 daguerreotypes during the journey, risking his life on several occasions for the sake of an image. Yet the images were never published, and the daguerreotypes have since been lost. This book, therefore, contains what is perhaps the only surviving image he took on the expedition, a daguerreotype of Cheyenne tipis. Because the volume is intended for adolescent readers, however, it is well-illustrated with other artwork and photos. As a novice on the trail and an observant Jew, Carvalho encountered many obstacles but rose to the challenge. The narrative, based on Carvalho's journal and letters, tells the story. LETTERS Dear Editor, An article in the Utah Historical Quarterly, Winter 2000, Vol. 68, No. 1, written by Kristen Smart Rogers and titled '"Another Good Man': Anthony W. Ivins and the Defeat of Reed Smoot," describes interesting events in the 1932 Utah senatorial campaign. Elbert D. Thomas defeated incumbent [LDS] Apostle Reed Smoot in that election. The article tells about a flyer A. Hamer Reiser produced on his own initiative and paid for from his own funds and gave to the Committee to Elect Elbert D. Thomas. Reed Smoot went to his grave unable to believe 34-year-old A. Hamer Reiser, "the kid," as he was characterized, was solely responsible for the flyer. Reed Smoot thought some of his associates produced the flyer. He thought one of the Democrat members of the Sunday School Superintendency or one of the Democrat Apostles was behind the piece. The article also describes an interesting encounter between President Anthony W. Ivins [counselor in the LDS First Presidency] and A. Hamer Reiser which occurred in the double-doored glass cubicle at the entrance to the Church Office Building at 47 East South Temple Street in Salt Lake City. Prior to that chance meeting, Anthony W. Ivins and A. Hamer Reiser had never had a conversation. In the article the author states, "That Reiser professed not to know Ivins's politics is puzzling. And the exact role that Anthony Ivins played in advising this group-his son in particular-is simply not known." The son was Grant Ivins. To assume A. Hamer Reiser knew as a certainty Anthony W. Ivins's politics, or that the information mattered at the time, is inconsistent with A. Hamer Reisers 374 |
