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Book Reviews 
 

Comments from the Book Review Editor 

This is the first issue of COMMONWEALTH to include book 
reviews. Our readers expressed a desire for a book review section, 
and though it may have taken longer than some might have hoped, 
the editorial staff responded to our readers’ request. In selecting 
books to review, we decided to give preference to titles dealing with 
Pennsylvania government, politics, policy, and history. We hope 
that our readers enjoy this new feature, and that they will 
recommend new or classic titles for review. Readers interested in 
reviewing books for COMMONWEALTH should send their names, 
contact information, areas of scholarly interest, and brief curriculum 
vitae to Dr. Thomas J. Baldino, COMMONWEALTH Book Review 
Editor, Department of Political Science, Wilkes University, Wilkes-
Barre, PA 18766. 



 

 134  

A Prayer for the City. By H.G. (Buzz) Bissinger. New York: 
Random House, 1997. 448 pp., $25.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-679-4219-8-
X; $15.00 paper, ISBN: 0-679-74494-0 

 
In 1996, I interviewed for a job with the Washington, D.C. 

Housing Authority, which oversees a substantial public housing 
operation serving the needs of lower-income residents of our 
nation’s Capitol. I was terribly under-qualified for the position, but 
the challenge excited me. The Housing Authority was entering 
receivership, which typically means that the administration 
responsible for running the authority into the ground would soon be 
removed. I felt quite confident about how I did during the 
interview, how I could be an asset, how young, bright minds like 
mine were just what was needed to right this ship! 

In the hot August afternoon, I walked three blocks to where I 
had parked my vehicle. En route, I saw a resident walk out of her 
public house and fling empty soda bottles on her front lawn. I 
walked over used condoms and drug needles. In all, I saw ten 
littering violations to an already disgusting landscape, and my 
confidence and positive outlook fell quickly. One thought hit me 
concerning my chosen vocation of helping communities rebound: 
can one person make any difference in a culture where failure and 
poverty are so rampant? 

Almost ten years later, the question remains open for debate. 
Many politicians take great credit for gentrified neighborhoods, 
which is a valid claim if one’s goal was to chase lower-income 
residents out of one’s backyard-shifting failure and poverty, not 
eliminating it. Others build arenas, malls, and stadiums with public 
dollars and claim that the city’s crumbling schools and houses will 
“come back” because 500 ushers will be employed at minimum 
wages for eight football games over the span of one calendar year. 
The hopefulness of newly elected officials and expectant residents 
is quickly tempered by what appears to be the hopelessness of the 
American City: residents flee because there are better places to live, 
and cities either cannot or will not fight hard enough to retain these 
residents. And the cycle continues… 

I must confess to absolutely loving A Prayer for the City. I read 
it for the first time while taking an Urban Studies class at the 
University of Rochester, where the local community foundation 
gave me a chance to witness how its modest grants were working to 



 

 135 

revitalize a slumping city. I’ve since read the book at least thirty 
times, and each time I am struck by the completeness and totality of 
Bissinger’s work. His holistic approach to studying the Rendell 
administration not only makes for enjoyable reading, but also 
guarantees that the reader will be aware of the time and place of the 
policies of the administration. Ed Rendell can welcome all the 
beauty contestants he likes, but the gritty reality is that Philadelphia 
was barely breathing when he arrived and had improved little over 
his first four years. That Bissinger is able to portray this result 
accurately while painting the mayor as a charismatic, can-do figure 
tells this reader that he understands community development and 
neighborhood revitalization in the 1990s. 

Just as the reader fully grasps the predicament of Philadelphia, 
Bissinger answers the question “how did we get here?” before the 
reader can ask it. On page 203, Bissinger uncovers the Homeowners 
Loan Corporation (HOLC) Map, drawn in 1937 and now stored at 
the National Archives in a very inconspicuous place. In this map, 
assessors determined the viability of neighborhoods based solely on 
the ethnicity of their residents. Today we would call that 
discrimination; in 1937 it was sound fiscal policy and helped set the 
stage for the U.S. mortgage market, the single largest wealth-
creating force in this country, unless, of course, one happens to live 
in the “do-not-lend” neighborhoods. 

This map, and the 10 pages of analysis that discuss it, should be 
required reading for every policymaker in the United States. All 
community development policy since 1937 is, in my humble 
opinion, a direct result of this map and analysis. The fate of poor 
neighborhoods was sealed when lenders determined that lending to 
residents in poor areas was far too risky for their business. In the 
1970s, more than 30 years after HOLC drew their maps, the 
Community Reinvestment Act mandated that lenders return capital 
to the neighborhoods from which they receive deposits. But lenders 
were one step ahead; in the late 1980s, risk-based pricing and 
subprime loans proliferated in neighborhoods the HOLC would 
have cautioned against entering. From a dearth of capital to 
unreasonably priced capital, minorities and lower-income persons 
continue to pay for the 1937 map. 

Bissinger takes the reader into the neighborhoods where the 
lower-income residents fight for survival; where middle-income 
city lovers must choose between better housing, better school, safer 



 

 136  

streets, lower taxes, or staying in the city; where public servants 
take small pleasure in courtroom victories as a way to “strike back” 
at the element they see as destroying their beloved city; and where 
shipyard workers ponder an uncertain future as manufacturing flees 
the scene of the crime with a swiftness matched only by the 
Industrial Revolution that precipitated it. 

A book typically is only as good as the access its author had to 
the stories contained within, and Bissinger’s continuous access to 
the mayor makes for compelling reading. But the residents tell the 
real story of Philadelphia. Those who could move out, in most 
cases, did; while those who could not remained behind to observe 
the decay firsthand. 

Working as a community development advocate, I believe that 
one person can make a difference in this field, but not without 
knowing the real story of America’s struggling communities. There 
is no better source than A Prayer for the City. 

Michael Butchko 
Senior Advisor, Public Policy and Legislative Affairs 

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation 

 
 

Pennsylvania Constitutional Development. By Rosalind Branning. 
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1960. 166 pp., $24.95 
paper, ISBN: 0-8229-5818-X 

One of the drawbacks of so much scholarly attention given to 
the U.S. Constitution is a lack of appreciation and respect for the 
lineage of state constitutions. In this reissue of Pennsylvania 
Constitutional Development (original published in 1960), Branning 
traces the history of Pennsylvania’s constitution, from its framing in 
1776 to calls for change in the late 1950s. Along the way, she 
considers how well the constitution was able to address the 
challenges facing the commonwealth and foresee the problems and 
issues that might lie ahead. In Branning’s view, Pennsylvania’s 
constitutional development has not been one that would make its 
citizens proud. Because Pennsylvania’s constitution has not kept up 
with the “needs of an increasingly complex society” (5), we are left 
with “[t]he imposition of the will of a past generation upon the 
present,” which Branning argues, “is not only unwise but 
undemocratic” (6). 



 

 137 

Pennsylvania Constitutional Development contains three major 
themes. First, Branning asserts that Pennsylvania’s constitution is in 
need of wholesale revision at the hands of a constitutional 
convention. Since the constitutional convention of 1874, 
Pennsylvania has opted for the piecemeal approach of amendments 
when, in fact, a constitutional convention “makeover” is in order. 
Second, though Branning calls on Pennsylvanians to revise their 
constitution through a convention, she faults the product of the last 
convention, held in1874, stating that that constitution “so hampered 
the legislature that it cannot act efficiently or effectively” (2). 
Branning’s criticism of the 1874 constitution and her plea for a 
constitutional convention stems from her third and final theme: 
good constitutional draftsmanship is marked by broad, general 
wording that allows the constitution to breathe and expand over 
time. 

Branning chooses to tell the story of Pennsylvania’s 
constitutional development using three different time periods. Part I 
examines Pennsylvania’s constitutions of 1776, 1790, and 1838. 
Drafted in the shadow of the American Revolution, Pennsylvania’s 
original constitution (1776) reflected the radicalism of its time. It 
provided for a unicameral legislature that met annually and whose 
proceedings were open to the public and published weekly. 
Executive distrust resulted in an Executive Council, rather than a 
governor. While the judges on the Supreme Court were appointed 
by the Executive Council for seven-year terms, they could be 
dismissed by the legislature for “misbehavior.” The constitution of 
1790 replaced the plural executive and unicameral legislature with a 
governor and bicameral legislature, respectively, while judges were 
given greater independence by being allowed to serve for “good 
behavior.” At the behest of “liberal reformers,” a constitutional 
convention was assembled in 1837, which produced the constitution 
of 1838. A divided convention discussed the length of the 
governor’s term, voting, and public education, among other topics, 
but the deep divisions largely resulted in maintaining the basic 
structure of the 1790 constitution. 

Part II, the longest segment of the book, is reserved for the most 
detailed constitution in Pennsylvania history, the constitution of 
1874. Legislative reform was the aim of the 1874 convention 
because of the prior legislative practice of passing private 
legislation, which benefited narrow interests. For example, prior to 



 

 138  

the 1874 constitution, railroad companies held enormous sway over 
the legislature and reaped the benefits of that influence. 
Recognizing this problem, the convention forbade the General 
Assembly from passing special legislation on 27 different subjects. 
Branning points out, however, that despite the needed reforms the 
convention restrained the legislature in ways that hampered its 
efficiency and effectiveness. These restrictions included shifting 
from annual to biennial sessions and securing regularity in the 
legislative process (bills can cover only one subject, must have a 
clear title, and must be read on three separate days in each house). 
The convention also limited the representation of Philadelphia in 
the state house. 

Part III examines 20th century development through 1959. 
Branning laments the fact that amendments, not wholesale revision, 
marked the change in Pennsylvania’s constitution in the 20th 
century. Because this is a reissue, and not a new edition of the book, 
the reader is left to speculate about what Branning would say 
regarding all of the changes made since the book’s publication. The 
long list of amendments called for in 1959 by the Commission on 
Constitutional Revision, along with the unlikelihood of ratifying so 
many of them, caused Branning again to urge the creation of a 
constitutional convention. Though many of Branning’s ideas—and 
the Commission’s formal recommendations—were ratified (e.g. 
allowing the governor to serve two terms and annual legislative 
sessions), others were not. Though many amendments to the 
constitution were ratified throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a 
constitutional convention to address the long-term ills of the 
constitution has yet to be called. When “[t]he need for constitutional 
revision is urgent” (156) but the demand for revision is not, it is no 
wonder we are still addressing the shortcomings of our constitution 
in piecemeal fashion. 

In sum, Pennsylvania Constitutional Development is a story 
worthy of being read by those interested in Pennsylvania history 
and state constitutional development. Though it does not provide a 
comparative perspective whereby the reader can evaluate 
Pennsylvania’s constitutional development in the context of 
surrounding states’ constitutional development, it does present an 
indictment worthy of discussion and serious thought. Readers 
interested in learning how to reconcile a constitution with 
democratic principles, however, will be disappointed. Branning 



 

 139 

fails to deliver on her promise to show why the “imposition of the 
will of a past generation upon the present is not only unwise but 
undemocratic” (6). Branning might be one of many who find fault 
with the 1874 document but it constrains us—if it does at all—only 
if we allow it to. An undemocratic constitution is one that governs a 
society that cannot amend it, not a society that has chosen not to 
amend it. 

Kyle L. Kreider 
 Wilkes University 

 
 

A Capitol Journey: Reflections on the Press, Politics, and the 
Making of Public Policy in Pennsylvania. By Vincent P. Carocci. 
University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 
2005. 298 pp., $39.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-271-02546-8 

A Capitol Journey is an intriguing book written by an equally 
intriguing observer of, and player in, Pennsylvania politics from 
1961 to 1995. It is not a political history as such, a point which the 
author makes in the preface. It is a memoir of a man who began his 
career in Harrisburg as a news reporter, became a staff member for 
the Senate Democrats, and finished a senior staffer for Governor 
Robert Casey. 

The result is an episodic book. Initially, we learn perhaps more 
than we might want to know about his family history, although it 
provides interesting insights into the process by which an 
immigrant family entered the political system. Next, we are given 
insights into the manner in which the Capitol press corps operated 
in the 1960s. 

Carocci’s shift from reporting the game to becoming a player in 
it provides the reader with insights on the operations of the Senate. 
However, the House of Representatives is ignored. Even in the 
Senate, the focus is on the Democrats. Carocci’s entry into the 
executive branch of the government under Casey shifts the focus 
again. This is to be expected in a personal memoir. 

Carocci does not hesitate to render his opinions of those with 
whom he worked and the various legislators with whom he 
interacted. Some of the legislators whom he names—not always in 
complimentary terms—are still active in Harrisburg. His detailed 
descriptions of some of the manipulators that he observed and the 



 

 140  

scandals surrounding four Senators in the 1970s should be read by 
every Pennsylvania voter before going to the polls. 

Each governor from David Lawrence to Richard Thornburgh 
has his own chapter. Casey is given an entire section. Carocci’s 
views of the governors do not appear to be influenced by his 
Democratic Party connections. In assessing the governors he knew 
and covered, he ranks William Scranton with Casey. 

Despite the uneven coverage, this is a book worth reading by 
anyone trying to understand the operation of Pennsylvania’s state 
government in the latter part of the 20th century. 

Harold Cox 
Wilkes University 

 
 

Front-Page Pittsburgh: Two Hundred Years of the Post-Gazette. 
By Clarke M. Thomas. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 
2005. 332 pp., $34.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-8229-42488 

In a famous letter to Colonel Edward Carrington written in 
1787, Thomas Jefferson offered perhaps one of the most compelling 
statements for the intrinsic value of a free press to a democratic 
society. “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a 
government without newspapers or newspapers without 
government,” he observed, “I should not hesitate a moment to 
prefer the latter.” 

That Jefferson advocated civic engagement and discussion 
through a free press, despite enormous criticism leveled at him by 
newspaper editors and contributors for his anti-Federalist political 
stance, shows just how democratic the notion was. 

Among Jefferson’s early detractors was John Scull, printer and 
original editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette, the city’s first newspaper 
established just a year before Jefferson’s famous comment. The 
young nation’s early political tensions were often played out in the 
press, and they mirrored the challenges American journalists have 
faced ever since in their frequently unpopular role as “watchdogs 
over the government.”  

Clarke M. Thomas, retired senior editor of the Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette, expertly chronicles the nuanced, often complex life of the 
nearly 220-year old newspaper that emerged when the country was 
but a “howling wilderness.” As Thomas illustrates, the newspaper’s 



 

 141 

initial tendencies, “a serious nature, a friendly attitude toward 
business, involvement in community affairs and open to varying 
opinions—within limits” (6), carried the publication through a 
myriad of social, political, and economic challenges and sustained it 
when so many other newspapers collapsed or merged. In many 
ways, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette defied the odds and survived 
when it probably should not have, making Thomas’s historical 
account an occasionally surprising and dramatic book. 

Thomas’s account underscores the notion that journalists not 
only chronicle history but frequently shape it. His focus in the first 
chapter of the book on Scull’s political advocacy establishes what 
would become a truism for over two centuries: that the newspaper 
and its leadership clearly shaped much of Pittsburgh’s, and even the 
nation’s, political awareness and identity. Drawing heavily from 
numerous historical accounts, such as J. Cutler Andrews’ 
Pittsburgh’s Post-Gazette, as well as original news stories and 
editorials from the newspaper, Thomas navigates readers through 
wars, economic boom and decline, uncomfortable race issues from 
slavery to civil rights, changes in editorial identity from 
conservative to liberal, and the murky waters of media competition 
and business mergers.   

Indeed, it is in Thomas’s examination of mergers that the 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes on a somewhat mythic character, 
surviving when so many newspapers across the nation collapsed 
under the weight of competition, bad management, ethical 
challenges, or simply the changing political tide. Almost at its very 
inception, the Pittsburgh Gazette faced local competition, mostly, 
according to Thomas, because of the political factions that emerged 
at the same time across the new country. But the Gazette staved off 
that competition until, almost inexplicably, it merged with the 
Pittsburgh Post in 1927. Thomas’s description that opens the 
chapter on the merger emphasizes the event as a turning point in the 
newspaper’s staying power, though he certainly does not suggest 
that it answers all questions on that front. 

 
The 1927 transaction that resulted in the union 
of the Gazette and the Post was one of the most 
mysterious in the history of Pittsburgh and, 
indeed, of national journalism. Without any 
warning to the staffs involved, four newspapers 



 

 142  

were combined into two, and then, within 
minutes, reconfigured to form completely 
different combinations. (148) 

 
Thomas narrates an extraordinary deal of bait-and-switch 

between two media moguls, William Randolph Hearst and Paul 
Block, Sr. After behind-closed-doors meetings and a rapid-fire 
business exchange before the ink on the acquisition papers was dry, 
the newspaper that would become the modern Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette was born and the newspaper competition in the city was 
reduced from five to three.  

Post-merger, the newspaper’s story became the nation’s story—
wrestling with the realities of the Civil Rights movement, Dr. 
Martin Luther King’s assassination, public outcry over political 
stances of its editorial pages, and frequently controversial coverage 
of education and abortion issues. But the book’s description of the 
1992 Teamster’s strike at a rival newspaper offers impressive, 
particularized detail to an issue especially poignant in the northeast: 
the tensions between corporate and family ownership. 

Perhaps what makes this book most noteworthy is that the 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s history spans over two centuries—nearly 
the life of the city in which it was born. Thus, it is a story not just of 
a single publication, but rather of a growing and changing city and 
nation. While the Hartford Courant is widely regarded as the 
nation’s oldest continuous newspaper, and the drama of the New 
York Times and the Chicago Tribune certainly garners those 
publications more time in the public spotlight, Thomas shows that 
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s narrative may be more fundamental 
to understanding the evolution of American print media. 

Thomas’s account moves at a journalistic pace, which makes it 
eminently readable, and archival photographs offer fascinating 
visual support and detail. The book recommends just as easily to the 
casual Barnes and Noble bestseller reader as it does to a student in 
an advanced media history course. 

 
Andrea Breemer Frantz 

Wilkes University 
 



 

 143 

The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh. Edited by Laurence 
A Glasco. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 432 
pp., $39.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-8229-4232-1 

One does not often have the opportunity to review a book that 
was truly seven decades in the making, so obviously the first 
question to confront is, was it worth the wait? Although it is painful 
to realize that this valuable resource has existed in obscurity for so 
long, the only possible answer is an emphatic yes. This work has 
great value not just to those interested in the history of Pittsburgh 
but also to scholars of African-American, New Deal, and urban 
studies as well.  

The genesis of this book was in the American Guide Series, 
which was part of the New Deal’s Federal Writer’s Project. Created 
in 1935, the Project was terminated by a conservative Congress in 
1939, making this but one of many works that was never completed. 
The manuscripts (there are multiple drafts and conflicting outlines 
and indices) have been in the Pennsylvania State Library in 
Harrisburg since the 1940s. Few scholars have used this outstanding 
resource on African-American urban life, even though it was 
microfilmed in 1970. 

Laurence A. Glasco, an associate professor of history at the 
University of Pittsburgh, has edited the manuscripts to create a very 
coherent and usable volume. He has also written a complete yet 
brief introduction that provides an excellent framework for 
understanding the work itself. In just 15 pages, he not only explains 
how he edited the text and gives the all important background of 
this New Deal project, but also nicely explores the original book’s 
strengths and weaknesses. This introduction greatly expands the 
potential audience for the volume, as now undergraduates and 
others can access the work easily. To make full use of the 
microfilm, users formerly had to bring this information with them; 
in the published volume, Glasco nicely packages the needed 
contextual background. 

The book consists of 14 chapters, six appendices (most were 
part of the original project but one is a guide to what was 
microfilmed), four maps (all added), and a newly created index. 
Because this was a work in progress with multiple authors, the 
chapters vary greatly in scope and focus. They are arranged in 
roughly chronological order and provide as a whole an interesting 



 

 144  

1930s popular history of blacks in the Pittsburgh area from the 
colonial period to the Great Depression. To an urban historian, 
Chapters 12 and 13, “Folkways” and “Arts and Culture,” are likely 
to be the most interesting ones. They provide many insights into 
everyday African-American life in Pittsburgh during the first third 
of the 20th century. This work can be coupled with W. E. B. 
DuBois’ masterful The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899; 
rev. ed., Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995) to 
provide students with an excellent introduction to the details of the 
late 19th and early 20th century black northern urban experience.  

Any work like this has its limitations, and Glasco acknowledges 
them in his introduction. For the scholar, it is quite frustrating that 
few of the original sources have been noted and that women, 
although present, are under-represented in many of the chapters. 
Most of these shortcomings are simply inherent in a volume that 
was never meant for an academic audience and the rest are likely 
the result of its incomplete nature or the period in which it was 
created. Thanks to Glasco’s thorough introduction, none of these 
limitations seriously affect the value of the book.  

For graduate students and other scholars, this work serves as an 
outstanding introduction to the microfilmed documents. By reading 
this book before exploring the manuscript, it should be much easier 
to make sense of original documents. For most teachers and 
students at the secondary and undergraduate levels, this volume can 
substitute for the microfilm in providing a primary source from 
seven decades ago on still unresolved issues of race and class in 
urban America. For anyone interested in Pittsburgh or the African-
American urban experience in the early twentieth century, this work 
is a must. Both Glasco and the University of Pittsburgh Press 
should be congratulated for making this valuable volume widely 
available.  

John H. Hepp, IV 
Wilkes University 

 

Harry, Tom, and Father Rice: Accusation and Betrayal in 
America’s Cold War. By John Hoerr. Pittsburgh, PA: University of 
Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 344 pp., $29.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-8229-4265-8 

This book is an illuminating examination of the effects of the 
Red Scare on a congressman, a labor union leader, and a Catholic 



 

 145 

priest who lived in the Pittsburgh area during the height of 
McCarthyism. The primary strength of Hoerr’s book is the richly 
detailed biographical information that he draws upon to create a 
highly nuanced look at the decision-making processes of those who 
found themselves to have the misfortune of appearing before the 
House Un-American Activities Committee. 

Another important strength of this book is the insight it 
provides on the interplay between labor unions and anti-Communist 
fervor during the late 1940s and 1950s. The book tells the story of 
Representative Harry Davenport, labor union leader Tom Quinn, 
and Father Charles Owen Rice. Hoerr can personalize each story 
because of his personal ties with each man, most especially his 
uncle, Harry Davenport. The book is also aided by a number of 
personal interviews that provide a great deal of information that 
otherwise would have been lost to history. The preservation of this 
story is important to understanding how the Red Scare affected the 
lives of regular, working-class Americans. The author’s intimate 
knowledge of the characters and his informal writing style make for 
vivid reading. 

Hoerr presents many interesting themes in the course of the 
book. Foremost among them is the ideological evolution of Harry 
and Father Rice. Harry was elected to Congress in 1948 as a 
champion of workers’ rights and a Progressive determined to help 
the “little guy.” Almost immediately upon his arrival in Washington 
he learned that things would not be easy because of the prevailing 
political situation engendered by the Red Scare, which made it very 
difficult for Harry to maintain his leftist ideology. However, the 
most surprising aspect of Harry’s story is the speed with which his 
ideals evaporated. 

Harry’s evolution is especially noteworthy because the ultimate 
betrayal of his most closely held values was caused not by real 
change from within, but by political expediency. The book thus 
contains a cautionary tale of the compromises sometimes necessary 
for public service. The clash between Harry’s values and his 
pragmatism underscores the conflict between idealism and political 
necessity. Harry’s story is tragic, as he is forced to betray his core 
beliefs when confronted by forces beyond his control. 

Father Rice experienced an important ideological evolution 
from anti-Communist activist to radical reformer marching with Dr. 
Martin Luther King. Some books present people as ideological 



 

 146  

monoliths that never deviate from their life paths; Hoerr succeeds in 
presenting a more nuanced, and therefore more accurate, description 
of the ways in which politics can change a person’s views. These 
changes can be both positive and negative, a point brought home in 
each case portrayed here. 

Another important theme is the power of guilt by association 
and the effect it can have on civil liberties. Tom’s story shows the 
effects of being associated with a Communist organization and the 
pall it can cast over one’s life for years. In many ways, Tom’s is the 
most sympathetic story in the book because he deserved his fate the 
least. Tom’s story was also the most intimate because Hoerr was 
able to conduct several interviews with him. 

Hoerr’s book will interest anyone curious about labor 
movements, McCarthyism, or the local history of Pittsburgh. The 
author’s focus on the city is particularly strong, for the book 
provides a unique insight into politics and union activism in 
Pittsburgh in the post-World War II years. 

Andrew P. Miller 
Wilkes University 

 

Pennsylvania Elections: Statewide Contests From 1950–2004. By 
John J. Kennedy. New York: University Press of America, 2006. 
214 pp., $31.95 cloth, ISBN: 0-7618-3278-5 

For many years, the best (only?) book on contemporary 
Pennsylvania politics was Paul Beers’ Pennsylvania Politics Today 
and Yesterday, which was published in 1980. But over the last two 
years several fine books have appeared to fill the gap in this 
important field, and among them is this book. Kennedy, an 
associate professor of political science at West Chester University 
and the author of The Contemporary Pennsylvania Legislature, has 
assembled election statistics for all state-wide general elections in 
Pennsylvania from 1950 to 2004 (N.B. primary election data are not 
included). The electoral contests include senatorial, gubernatorial, 
state row offices (lieutenant governor and internal affairs—both of 
which were removed from direct election by the constitutional 
changes of 1968—treasurer, auditor general, and attorney general), 
and presidential.  

Each office is presented in its own chapter with the exception of 
the row offices, which are discussed in a single chapter. There is 



 

 147 

also an introductory chapter that discusses Pennsylvania’s political 
history and geography. Within the chapters, the author discusses 
each election separately, providing information about the major 
parties’ candidates (the author chose not to include any third or 
minor party candidates in his analysis), their personal and political 
backgrounds, the major issues in the race, significant issues that 
were addressed, and any important event that influenced the 
outcome of the race. Election descriptions vary in length from a 
paragraph or two to several pages. Most are informative at a basic 
level while several are fairly detailed, e.g. the 1980 Specter–
Flaherty and 1991 Wofford–Thornburgh Senatorial races, and the 
1962 Scranton–Dillworth gubernatorial election.   

While there is much useful information contained in its pages, 
the book lacks an overarching central thesis. The author appears to 
have chosen to present the data and to allow it to speak for itself, 
the individual election analyses notwithstanding. Since the author 
never presents the research as theoretically driven, it is perhaps 
unfair to criticize it this way; however, the work would have been 
stronger had the author identified a general trend or explanatory 
factor that would have tied many of the elections together. 

I also question the author’s decision to present the electoral data 
as a percentage of the two-party vote as opposed to each party’s 
percentage of the total vote cast in an election. The author reasoned 
that because third parties had not generally received significant 
numbers of votes, it was easier to understand an election’s outcome 
by contrasting just the two-party vote. Though individual third 
parties may indeed frequently receive few votes, removing all third 
party totals in an election inflates, however so slightly, the totals for 
the two major parties, which distorts whatever trend analysis a 
person may want to undertake. 

Finally, the author’s choices in locating some counties in 
geographic clusters—southeastern, southwestern, northeastern, and 
central—raised a few questions in my mind. Of greatest concern 
was the placement of Bradford, Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike, 
Sullivan, Wyoming, and Schuylkill counties into the central region 
rather than the northeastern region. Most residents of those counties 
would likely consider themselves residents of the northeast. In 
addition, the geographic division would have benefited from a fifth 
region: a northwestern cluster that would have made the central 
region more homogeneous. One of the interesting things about a 



 

 148  

geographically based presentation of electoral politics in the state is 
that the regional divisions of the last half of the 20th century may be 
losing whatever explanatory power they may have had. With the 
change in voting behavior in the southeastern suburban counties, 
the changing character of the populations in the Pocono counties 
and the transition in the south central counties as they fast become 
bedroom communities for the Baltimore–Washington area, a new 
set of regions may be necessary. 

Despite my reservations, Kennedy’s work contributes to our 
understanding of electoral politics in Pennsylvania. Along with Jack 
M. Treadway’s Elections in Pennsylvania, students and scholars 
alike have two fine resources. 

Thomas J. Baldino 
  Wilkes University  

  
  

The People of this Generation: The Rise and Fall of the New Left 
in Philadelphia. By Paul Lyons. Philadelphia: University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 288 pp., $42.50 cloth, ISBN: 0-8122-
3715-3 

This book is must reading for anyone interested in 
understanding the rise, accomplishments, challenges, and demise of 
the New Left. It is also a highly instructive book for social scientists 
and activists who want to understand the nature of coalition 
building, political movements, and social and political activism. 
Finally, Philadelphia history buffs should not miss this important 
contribution to local folklore and legend. 

Of course, one could always ask the question, why the need for 
yet another book on the New Left and 1960s student activism? 
After all, the shelves are already filled with books by Todd Gitlin, 
James Miller, Allen Matusow, Jack Whalen and Richard Flacks, 
and Edward Quinn and Paul Dolan, to name a few. Lyons pre-empts 
that question almost immediately when he asserts on page 2 that 
“one must examine the social and political movements of the 
1960s—what participants call ‘the movement’—in the context of 
their geographic, political and cultural environments.” It is this local 
contextual analysis that distinguishes Lyons’ book from those that 
preceded its publication. 



 

 149 

Lyons, a Professor of Social Work at Richard Stockton College 
in New Jersey, has amassed a wealth of archival information 
supplemented by in-depth interviews of former student activists, 
filtering both through his own insightful understandings of what 
transpired in the 1960s. The result is a richly detailed history of 
how the New Left developed in Philadelphia on eight different 
college campuses and how it interacted, or failed to interact, with 
other, non-student activist organizations such as the American 
Friends Service Committee. Thus, the contextual rooting is 
conducted on two levels. The macro level is the city of 
Philadelphia, an older, de-industrializing city that was losing 
population and jobs, undergoing racial change, and coming under 
the political reign of Frank Rizzo, police chief turned mayor who 
epitomized the conservative white backlash movement that gripped 
many cities and, ultimately, the nation’s politics in the mid-to-late 
1960s. While these themes ring familiar for many cities, 
Philadelphia was distinguished by its Quaker heritage, which has 
influenced organizational development and race relations in the 
city. On the micro level, Lyons introduces a contextual examination 
by focusing on four different types of college campus—Catholic 
(LaSalle, Villanova, and St. Joseph’s Universities), Quaker (Bryn 
Mawr, Swarthmore, and Haverford Colleges), elite private 
(University of Pennsylvania), and working class public (Temple 
University). 

Rising from the ashes of the U.S. Communist Party’s collapse 
and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, the New 
Left was heavily influenced, in its early stages, by the black-led 
civil rights movement in the American South. Initially anti-
ideological and heavily participatory, the New Left would 
eventually encounter severe fissures that prematurely ended this 
once vibrant, promise-filled movement. The increasing militancy of 
the civil rights movement, which, in part, shifted from a pro-
integrationist, non-violent stance to a Black Power, pro-nationalist, 
“by any means necessary” position; the urban riots and the 
subsequent hard line police response; the rise of identity politics 
(e.g. Black Power, feminism); and the cultural revolution of “drugs, 
sex, and rock and roll” that swept young Americans, all chipped 
away at the foundations of the New Left in Philadelphia as it did 
elsewhere. 



 

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Lyons attempts to highlight these struggles by focusing 
primarily on two organizations: Philadelphia Resistance, the anti-
war organization; and People for Human Rights, the anti-racist 
organization. In many ways, these two organizations epitomize the 
early hopeful years of the New Left and its later, more seriously 
troubled years. They also underscore the difficulties of political 
mobilization on any large scale. 

After taking the reader on a tour of the eight college campuses 
and the New Left organizations they spawned (e.g. SDS Economic 
Research and Action Project at Swarthmore; Penn Rights Council 
and Students Opposed to Germ Warfare-STOP-at University of 
Pennsylvania; and Conscience at Temple University), Lyons shifts 
his focus to the two pivotal organizations, the Philadelphia 
Resistance (PR) and People for Human Rights (PHR), to 
demonstrate the impact of the tumultuous 1960s on the New Left. 
Growing out of the combined anti-war efforts at the various college 
campuses and aided by the Quaker organizational infrastructure, PR 
emerged in 1967, focusing its energies largely around anti-war 
activities such as draft counseling and demonstrations. PHR, on the 
other hand, emerged from the growing militancy of the Civil Rights 
Movement, taking as its mantra a heavy anti-racist position. 
According to Lyons, both organizations flirted with third world and 
Maoist ideologies, a growing trend within some New Left circles. 
Adopting the rhetoric of liberation strategies and, in some cases, 
their tactics, this development alienated many potential supporters. 
PR, however, because of its reliance on and influence by the Quaker 
infrastructure and its focus on anti-war activities, was less culpable, 
maintaining a “moral high ground” (224). Despite this more 
palatable stance, PR, like PHR, eventually imploded, mimicking the 
experience of the New Left in general. 

Lyons touches upon many interesting themes in the book such 
as the a-historicity of the New Left; the influence of the Quaker 
tradition on New Left organizing; the role of class and spiritual 
context and mission in shaping students’ world views and approach 
to activism and organizing; and the impact of identity politics, black 
nationalism, and the cultural revolution on the New Left. However, 
these themes are left largely undeveloped. For example, the 
comparison between PR and PHR, which contains many of these 
themes, never attains a satisfactory resolution. Lyons suggests that 
both organizations were attracted by Third World revolutionary 



 

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struggles but he does not really explain why PR did not go as far in 
embracing them as did PHR and other New Left organizations. The 
Quaker influence and the focus on anti-war activities that 
characterized PR are surface reasons that need much more 
exploration. Lyons attempts to give the reader a thick description of 
New Left activities while also exploring numerous themes. This is 
not an easy task and, as is often the case, the details tend to crowd 
out larger analysis. Nonetheless, through the excavation of such 
rich details, Lyons has brought the reader into the day, the moment, 
and the experience of the 1960s New Left, which is a rare treat. 

Barbara Ferman 
Temple University 

 

Ruling Suburbia: John J. McClure and the Republican Machine 
in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. By John M. McLarnon III. 
Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2003. 352 pp., $60.00 
cloth, ISBN: 0-87413-814-0 

In 2006, the politics in suburban Philadelphia counties are 
changing as Democrats challenge Republicans for control of 
elective offices representing those areas. Recent Democratic 
candidates for president, Congress, governor, the state legislature, 
and county and municipal governments have won the majority of 
votes or at least competed in close elections with Republican 
winners. Voting and voter registration document the shifting 
identities of the suburban voters. 

Current Democratic success in the suburbs is remarkable 
because of the firm grip Republicans historically have had on voter 
loyalties there. Southeastern Pennsylvania’s five counties (Bucks, 
Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia) were solid 
Republican areas from the late 1800s through World War II. 
Philadelphia broke Republican control during the reform movement 
in the late 1940s and early 1950s and became home to a powerful 
Democratic organization, but the suburban counties remained under 
the control of the county Republican political machines. 

John McLarnon’s Ruling Suburbia provides a fair, clear-eyed, 
and colorful view of the power of the McClure family in Delaware 
County. William McClure and his son, John, were the “bosses” 
controlling the Republican machine from 1875 until 1965. 



 

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McLarnon’s focus is on the life and times of John McClure who ran 
the County from 1907 to 1965. McLarnon portrait and analysis of 
John McClure as “boss” in the suburbs expands our understanding 
of this type of political leadership beyond what we know from 
studies of large cities. 

McClarnon is a talented story teller who weaves details about 
places, people and events into an entertaining account of a political 
master at work. While presenting the history, he also provides the 
needed connections to theories of machine success and decline, as 
well as comparisons to other political bosses featured in studies of 
large central cities. For example, McClarnon writes, “McClure was 
never involved in the crimes on the order of the police beatings and 
kidnappings in Tom Pendergast’s Kansas City. He used but never 
allied himself with organized crime the way that Pat Nash and Ed 
Kelly had done with the Capone mob in Chicago” (240). 

Like George Washington Plunkitt of New York’s Tammany 
Hall machine, McClure’s long tenure as boss was founded on his 
keen ability to “read and react to the needs of the electorate” (12) as 
well as to his willingness to use “loyalty, patronage, macing, 
bigotry, greed and innate political savvy to maintain his power” 
(239). And like the Philadelphia electorate that Lincoln Steffens 
described in his The Shame of Cities, the voters of Delaware County 
did not care so much “for honest, democratic government” (12), and 
so they repeatedly returned McClure’s Republicans to office. 

Ruling Suburbia is an excellent work of political history with 
an expansive list of references and extensive notes. Readers 
interested in Pennsylvania politics, especially in the southeastern 
region of the state, and in the practice of machine politics suburban-
style will find McClarnon’s Ruling Suburbia most useful. 

 
Craig M. Wheeland  

Villanova University 

 
A City Transformed: Redevelopment, Race, and Suburbanization 
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1940–1980. By David Schuyler. 
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. 
288 pp., $74.00 cloth, ISBN: 0-271-02207-8; $20.95 paper, ISBN: 
0-27102208-6 



 

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The story of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is the story of most 
medium-sized cities from the Atlantic Ocean to the great Midwest. 
Born of necessary density, these pedestrian cities thrived prior to 
the automobile and then struggled to remain relevant throughout the 
20th century. However, if this were the sole dilemma confronting 
community development policy in the Eastern United States since 
1940, cities most likely would have found the elixir that guaranteed 
survival and shared it amongst themselves. 

But the struggle for survival that Lancaster and other cities of 
its kind faced was the result of multiple aggravating factors: 
consumers’ desire for a plot of land with a home, increasing racial 
tension and the white flight that accompanied it, an abundance of 
roads to complement the abundance of vehicles, and the general 
sense that living in the city was not where one’s future would shine 
brightest. At the conclusion of World War II, those Americans who 
had failed to heed the credo, “Go West,” made their own mantra: 
Move Out of the City. 

As cities began to decline, governments at every level 
intervened. What Schuyler fails to emphasize, however, is that the 
field of community development is closely tied to community 
organizing: citizens, feeling disenfranchised, rally together to make 
their needs known. Ignoring this (and other) key components of a 
broader neighborhood revitalization strategy make for a weak, one-
dimensional analysis of even the most stimulating topic. 

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is not particularly interesting as a 
subject; and David Schuyler’s A City Transformed paints a shallow 
picture of what might have been a lively discussion of future plans 
for Lancaster in 1940. Schuyler’s over-reliance on newspaper 
accounts and overemphasis on the mayor’s platforms for 
neighborhood revitalization make for dry, why-should-I-care 
reading. Why would someone living outside of the city of Lancaster 
care if the greater Lancaster metropolitan area decays into a 
modern-day Pompeii? 

Communities are more than bricks and mortar, shopping centers 
and freeways, politicians and town hall meetings. People make 
choices every day that affect a city’s sustainability: where to live, 
work, eat, shop; where to educate their children; and most 
important, whether to become involved in the dialogue that shapes 
their hometowns. Schuyler makes no attempt to interview 
Lancaster’s residents from that time, to understand the reasons for 



 

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suburban flight, or to determine if the pre-1940s sense of 
Lancaster’s future was rosy or expectant of inevitable decline. Little 
attention is paid to the sociology of returning veterans of World 
War II or how their choices affected Lancaster. By contrast, entirely 
too much time is devoted to local forms of government. The policy 
decisions made by the federal and state governments regarding 
urban areas from 1930-1960 guaranteed the fate of the vast majority 
of America’s older cities, and a council meeting with the newly 
elected mayor of Lancaster in 1962 could do little to alter that force. 

Schuyler missed a prime opportunity to make his book 
moderately interesting by not interviewing descendants of the 
residents of Barney Google Row. What had become of these 
families? Had the strong social bonds they built in what policy-
makers referred to as “a ghetto” been more significant than a newer 
dwelling place? Or did their displacement not fundamentally alter 
the patterns of their lives, which would then justify the city’s 
decisions not only on moral grounds (helping those in need), but 
also on economic ones (higher tax base, more opportunity for 
infrastructure)? Did these people merely show up at the town hall 
meetings, dutifully reported by the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal? 
Schuyler also commits another grave sin of omission by focusing 
his analysis too narrowly. He fails to compare Lancaster with 
similar Pennsylvania cities (Wilkes-Barre, York, and Harrisburg 
come to mind) or cities in upstate New York that might offer clues 
as to why Lancaster was “less transformed.” 

Based on Schuyler’s book, A City Transformed ultimately is a 
misnomer for Lancaster. It never underwent a transformation, but 
rather was tinkered with by a revolving door of elected officials, to 
the interest of the local press alone. 

Michael Butchko 
 Senior Advisor, Public Policy and Legislative Affairs 

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation 
 

 
 
Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of 
Pittsburgh and Its Region. Edited by Joel A. Tarr. Pittsburgh, PA: 
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. 296 pp., $32.00 cloth, ISBN 
0-8229-4156-2; $24.95 paper, ISBN 0-8229-5892-9 



 

 155 

In the late 1960s, I was a graduate student at the University of 
Pittsburgh and lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood adjacent to 
beautiful Schenley Park. The drive each morning through the park 
to Oakland, the university’s neighborhood, was idyllic. As a 
transplanted Philadelphian, I often reflected during the short drive 
on the dire warnings from family and friends about the inhospitable 
milieu of the city “out west.” Although I quickly came to admire 
this gritty city, the warnings were not without foundation. Some 
mornings, when the wind blew across Squirrel Hill from the Jones 
and Laughlin plant, there would be a thin veneer of red dust on the 
car. I wondered what its color was in my lungs. Each year, after the 
snow thaw and spring rains, my wife and I would develop severe 
intestinal discomfort, which we would attribute to the drinking 
water. We joked that it gave new meaning to the concept “spring 
cleaning.” 

I mention these recollections because many Allegheny County 
citizens tell similar personal stories. For these citizens, Devastation 
and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its 
Region is required reading, for it places in an historical context the 
individual experiences of urbanites living in a compromised 
environment. For policy makers and academics, Joel A. Tarr, the 
Richard S. Caliguiri Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy 
at Carnegie Mellon University, and his colleagues have chronicled 
the impact on air, water, and land when urban regimes confront the 
conflicting demands of commercial, industrial, and recreational uses 
of an ecosystem. In doing so, the authors both reinforce and 
question conclusions found in the policy literature on identifying 
and implementing the elusive public interest. 

The introductory chapter by Tarr and Edward K. Muller traces 
the abuse of the natural landscape by the increasing scale and 
rapacity of industrial capitalism. The advantages of Pittsburgh’s 
environment were discovered early in the nation’s history: the 
confluence of three navigable rivers, nearby rich veins of coal, and 
awe-inspiring hills and valleys. The rivers, especially the westward 
flowing Ohio, made the city an early commercial gateway to an 
undeveloped continent. Coal, and its derivative coke, fueled the 
city’s transformation to an industrial titan. The hills, too steep for 
farming, became precarious residential locations above the rivers’ 
floodplains to house the expanding population. Eventually the 
rivers became polluted, the air smoky, and the valleys slag disposal 



 

 156  

sites. At the same time, other forces were at work to improve these 
deleterious environmental consequences and eventually to plan a 
Renaissance city. The story of how this was accomplished, 
including who benefited and who bore the costs, is the focus of this 
work. 

Much of this conflict focused on the city’s most commanding 
natural landmark, its three rivers and their tributaries. So it is 
appropriate that a trilogy of articles explores the use and abuse of 
the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio rivers. In his article 
“River City,” Muller provides an overview of the symbiotic 
relationship between Pittsburghers and their rivers over time. Rivers 
sustained the commercial, residential, and industrial activity, yet 
were acted upon when flows were altered, the aquatic composition 
degraded, and the banks developed. Results were sometimes 
catastrophic. The rivers’ pollution drove the death toll from typhoid 
fever to the highest in the nation. 

Tarr and Terry Yosie examine the political conflicts over this 
critical problem of the city’s water supply and sewage treatment. 
They explain that the urban regime provided high quality drinking 
water in the first decade of the twentieth century, which reduced the 
typhoid fever rate to the national average, but the treatment of 
wastewater was not completed for another half-century. The delay 
was caused in part by the political rivalry of local governments and 
in part by the professional competition between public health 
physicians and sanitary engineers. 

The typhoid bacterium was not the only pollutant in the water. 
Nicholas Casner documents in his article that during the 1920s acid 
mine drainage resulted in 2.5 million tons of sulfuric acid being 
dumped annually into the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. This pollution, 
originally accepted as a cost for economic prosperity, soon created 
unacceptable trade offs such as acidic tasting water, corroded 
locomotive boilers, and leaky home plumbing. The political conflict 
among interested parties resulted in highly controversial court 
decisions supporting the polluters. While water treatment was 
eventually used to neutralize the acids, mine drainage remains a 
problem throughout Pennsylvania. 

The second triad of articles examines the most visible of the 
city’s previous pollution problems: its smoky air. Angela Gugliotta 
offers a cultural history of smoke as a prosperity symbol to the 
masses, physical nuisance to the middle class, and costly 



 

 157 

impediment to post-war economic diversification for the financial 
elite. Some cataclysmic events, such as the deadly Donora air 
pollution disaster in 1948, explored in an article by Lynne Page 
Snyder, made public the connection between pollution, in this case 
from a zinc plant, and public health. The symbolic use of this event 
by pollution control advocates helped initiate limited federal 
proposals. However, the most enduring conflicts over smoke 
control took place at the city and county levels, as reported in the 
article by Tarr and Sherie R. Mershon. Their analysis makes clear 
that the antismoke coalition pressure for policy reform was a 
necessary but not sufficient condition for clean air. Equally 
important were the transition from coal to gas in domestic furnaces, 
the change from steam to diesel locomotives, and eventually the 
deindustrialization of the region. 

Both the urban regime and community groups could find some 
common ground to support remedial action on water and air 
pollution since contaminants ignored, for the most part, class and 
political divisions. This was not the case with landscape 
desecration, as explained in a study by Andrew S. McElwaine. 
Elites disagreed over the control and use of the land and tensions 
between the urban regime and neighborhood organizations were 
never resolved because of a lack of direct communication between 
well-meaning civic reformers and local-oriented ward politicians. 
Consequently, urban plans, such as the one for the Nine Mile Run 
Valley by Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., were never implemented. 
Nine Mile Run Valley became a slagheap instead of a park. 

The anthology ends with an analysis by Samuel P. Hays that is 
both a reminiscence of his personal participation in local 
environmental action and a comparative cultural analysis of 
regional environmental values. He concludes that there is little 
support for an environmental culture in a region of “rustbelt” 
standards emphasizing economic development. Environmental 
concerns lack a local voice because citizen organizations are 
disorganized, rely on business contributions, and have ceded 
initiative to the federal government. The mass media report on the 
rehabilitated environment as a crucial recreational attraction for 
professionals in the “new economy” rather than as an intrinsic value 
to preserve. Educational institutions have not developed adequate 
environmental programs for a variety of reasons specific to their 
missions and resources. Hays’ analysis is an appropriate ending, for 



 

 158  

he questions past achievements while at the same time calling for a 
renewed commitment to an environmental ethic. 

 
Thomas C. Brogan 

Albright College 
 
 

Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years’ War in Virginia and 
Pennsylvania, 1754–1765. By Matthew C. Ward. Pittsburgh, PA: 
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. 360 pp., $34.95 cloth, ISBN: 
0-8229-4214-3; $21.95 paper, ISBN: 0-8229-5865-1 

Standard studies of the Seven Years’ War tend to focus on its 
effect on New England or on the dramatic struggle for Canada, but 
the war’s impact on the Virginia– Pennsylvania backcountry and on 
Native Americans has largely been overlooked. In this clearly 
written and logically organized book, Matthew C. Ward, a lecturer 
in the Department of History at the University of Dundee, Scotland, 
addresses this gap. 

When France and Britain entered what would become a global 
war over the Ohio Valley fur trade, the French had little trouble 
persuading Native American trading partners to join them and 
mount raids on civilian targets because the natives had many 
grievances. Eastern Delawares resented the advance of settlement 
and the loss of their lands in the infamous Walking Purchase, and 
the Ohio Valley tribes feared that their lands would be next. 
Beginning in 1754, Native American raids emptied the backcountry 
of settlement in some areas; destroyed plantations, livestock, and 
crops; and disrupted the regional economy because city merchants 
could not collect debts from rural customers who had lost 
everything. Casualties were substantial; 1% of the total population 
of both colonies (4% of the backcountry population) was killed or 
captured, figures comparable to losses in America’s Revolutionary 
and Civil wars. 

Ward argues that the Seven Years’ War changed the nature of 
colonial life in four ways. It increased the power and activities of 
colonial governments that, for the first time, were compelled to 
raise and provision an army. In addition, it demonstrated the 
individualistic nature of the backcountry and its separation, 
geographically and mentally, from eastern politics and society. It 
also altered irrevocably the relationship between Great Britain and 



 

 159 

the colonists. Britain resented the latter’s reluctance to fight; 
colonists observed the blunders of inept leaders such as Edward 
Braddock and Sir John St. Clair and took on new confidence in 
their own abilities. Resentment against the British, who did not 
seem to appreciate the colonists’ war contributions, and who tried to 
protect Native Americans by banning white settlement beyond the 
Appalachians, would smolder until the Imperial Crisis, when it 
pushed Virginia and Pennsylvania to join their New England 
brethren in rebellion. Finally, the war left colonists with permanent 
feelings of hatred toward all Native Americans, as shown by the 
Paxton Boys’ massacre of a group of peaceful Conestoga in 
Pennsylvania and a similar but lesser-known assault by the 
“Augusta Boys” in Virginia. 

The war also changed the way Native Americans fought. 
Besides traditional methods of seizing captives and booty, they 
added European-style tactics, attacking military outposts and 
disrupting supply and communication lines. Most horrifying to 
colonists and soldiers alike was their adoption of psychological 
warfare. Raiders left behind mutilated women’s and children’s 
bodies, heads of decapitated victims displayed on posts, and body 
parts roasting over fires to demoralize and terrify their enemies. 

Backcountry residents were fiercely individualistic with little 
deference toward the local elite, whom they considered merely their 
equals. There were no community institutions, other than taverns, 
where people came together. Thus, justices of the peace, in order to 
retain power, shielded locals and bowed to their wishes rather than 
enforce unpopular laws in support of the war. Most backcountry 
men were reluctant soldiers, and military records show that they 
lacked both firearms and the ability to use them. When their homes 
were threatened, they preferred to protect their personal property 
rather than join an army out of a larger sense of duty. Not that there 
was much of an army to join; in 1754 Virginia militias were social 
organizations, and in Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania, militias did 
not exist. Raising troops was even more problematic because of 
squabbling among the governors and assemblies, especially in 
Pennsylvania where political leaders fell into fiercely pro and anti-
proprietor factions. The only way to inspire men to join the army 
was to offer substantial bounties, and the results were not felicitous. 
In Virginia, provincial forces mainly consisted of convicts and 
vagrants; in Pennsylvania, indentured servants. Early on, desertion 



 

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and insubordination were common. Officers were unskilled, elected 
by popularity rather than ability, and discipline was lax. By 1757, 
colonial forces had improved dramatically, though British regulars 
“still balked at their disorder when serving alongside them” (121). 

British policies following the expulsion of the French from 
Canada and the Ohio Valley in 1760 drove Native Americans to 
resume hostilities just a few years later. Weary of pouring money 
into North America, the British adopted a parsimonious attitude, 
refusing to give Native Americans the traditional gifts and trade 
goods they expected from their new trading partners. They also 
reneged on pledges to abandon their Ohio Valley forts after the 
French defeat. Despite a royal proclamation banning European 
settlement west of the Alleghenies, colonists saw the region as up 
for grabs—a just reward for wartime service. The result was the so-
called Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763–1765), in which incensed natives 
hit the backcountry with the same intensity as in the earlier conflict. 
To the Native Americans, this response was perfectly reasonable 
since the British had not behaved honorably, but backcountry 
residents understandably did not share this view. 

I found much to praise and little to quarrel with in this book. I 
would have appreciated some additional detail in the maps, and I 
would like to know more about the frontiersmen’s lack of firearms. 
Ward cites Michael Bellesille’s controversial work on gun 
ownership uncritically, and he does not address the common 
perception that backcountry people needed firearms to survive. On 
the other hand, Ward ably explains life in the backcountry, the 
demographics of provincial armies (including a comparison of 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts soldiers), the intricacies 
of Native American diplomacy, the politics of colonial government, 
and military actions in the Ohio Valley. Scholars interested in rural 
life, military and social history, and Native American studies should 
welcome this book. 

Diane Wenger 
Wilkes University


