382
INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
PEGGY SEIGEI'S article on Charles
Her research interests also include
Beecher, a New School Presbyterian
Indiana Civil War nurses, the Under-
minister in Fort Wayne, appeared in
ground Railroad, and the suffrage
the December 2010 issue of the IMH.
movement in Fort Wayne.
Gary, The Most American of All Cities
By S. Paul O'Hara
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. Pp. x, 195. Notes, bibliography, index. Paperbound, $19.95.)
jour-
The history of Gary, Indiana, is punc-
outside in, through the eyes of
tuated by extremes. In the early twen-
nalists, novelists, filmmakers, and
tieth century, the city was home to the
other observers who either visited the
world's largest integrated steel mill
steel town or passed through. As
complex, the Gary Works. During the
O'Hara deftly demonstrates, it was
1960s, it became one of the nation's
these image makers who vaulted Gary
premier showcases for African Amer-
to national prominence and allowed
ican political empowerment. By cen-
its history to narrate American cul-
tury's end, few places in the United
ture in the twentieth century.
States displayed more severe symp-
The book's organization corre-
toms of urban distress. Because of
sponds to three sequential phases of
these exceptional circumstances, the
public discussion, each guided by a
city was frequently invoked in debates
distinctive set of themes and tropes.
and discussions about the course of
Early commentary responded to the
America's progress. Paul O'Hara takes
United States Steel Corporation's
full advantage of this prolific com-
novel use of geography to resolve the
mentary in a book that explores
tension between industrial capitalism
America's shifting views about indus-
and social harmony. Among admir-
trial capitalism through the lens of
ers, Gary's location on Chicago's dis-
Gary. While
other scholars have
tant metropolitan periphery and the
chronicled the unfolding of industri-
internal demarcation of residential
al development, social reform, racial
and work spaces inspired utopian
politics, and environmental activism
visions of industrial efficiency and
within this fascinating city, O'Hara is
effective social planning. Critics, how-
the first to examine Gary as an idea
ever, viewed the steel company's lais-
or, perhaps more accurately, as a
sez-faire stance toward civic affairs as
palimpsest upon which the rest of the
an abnegation of corporate responsi-
nation projected its hopes, fears, con-
bility. This physical separation of mill
victions, and assumptions. To this
and town continued to influence pub-
end, O'Hara reveals Gary from the
lic perceptions in subsequent decades.
REVIEWS
While the Gary Works trumpeted the
ryline here is that concerns about
triumphs of mass production tech-
racial conflict in the late twentieth
nology, the town's messy social scene
century displaced and disfigured a
evoked frontier imagery. Alternative-
national conversation about indus-
ly, the town was a beacon of individ-
trial capitalism.
ual opportunity and an unruly den of
O'Hara has produced a highly
iniquity. After World War II, political
readable and engaging account appro-
corruption, crime, racial discord, and
priate for adoption in courses about
de-industrialization produced a tale
twentieth-century American culture
of declension.
and urban history. Readers of this
Actors external to Gary dominate
journal may be amused to learn that
O'Hara's analysis, but the author is
as far back as 1912, Gary was set off
careful to contrast national perspec-
from the rest of the state in the pub-
tives
generated
lic imagination. As a creation of
responses that flattered the city with
monopoly capitalism, Chicago's east-
an emphasis on ethnic solidarity, a
ern appendage was considered anti-
noble work ethic, and gritty mas-
thetical to the spirit of truly free
culinity. Taken together, these con-
enterprise for which not only the
flicting
"real" America but the "real" Indiana
with
internally
narratives
flesh
out
a
self-portrait of America as it struggled
stood.
to reconcile a powerful manufacturing economy with a complicated array
ANDREW HURLEY is Professor of His-
of social repercussions. Although
tory at the University of Missouri-St.
O'Hara insists that these narratives
Louis. His most recent book is Beyond
trace the "ways Americans under-
Preservation: Using Public History to
stood and felt about industrialism and
Revitalize Inner Cities (2010).
industrial spaces," (p. 4) the real sto-
A New Nation of Goods
The Material Culture of Early America
By David Jaffee
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Pp. [xvi], 400. Illustrations, notes, index.
$45.00.)
A New Nation of Goods is a detailed
embrace of genteel goods, but before
yet wide-ranging study of the manu-
the materialization of Victorian bour-
facture and consumption of material
geois culture. David Jaffee investi-
goods in the provincial northeastern
gates the vital role played by New
United States between
England's provincial craftsmen in
1775 and
1850-a period after provincial elites'
facilitating
the
emerging
middle
383