Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854– 1894 by Kevin G. W. Olson

Abstract

Reviewed by: Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854– 1894 by Kevin G. W. Olson Charles Delgadillo Kevin G. W. Olson, Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854– 1894. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 273 pp. $29.95. What does the history of the first four decades of a small city in eastern Kansas tell us about the broader sweep of American history during the second half of the nineteenth century? As Kevin G. W. Olson skillfully demonstrates in his work Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854– 1894, the story of Manhattan’s early years is tremendously informative about national developments during the era. Frontier Manhattan begins with the region’s original Kansa Indian residents, who established a town called “Blue Earth Village” on the site Manhattan would later occupy. The first white settlers were part of a well-funded and well-organized movement of northern abolitionists who were determined to halt southern attempts to claim the Kansas territory for slavery. Olson documents Manhattan’s growing pains, including shortages of tools and basic staples, struggles with lawlessness and violence, competition with neighboring towns for scarce settlers, trade, and influence, natural disasters, outright conflict in “Bleeding Kansas,” and partisan raids during the Civil War. Any study of a single community is at risk of becoming too focused on the local story, but this is a fate that Olson successfully avoids by carefully linking developments in Manhattan to national issues. For instance, the author explains that the town’s founders operated under the aegis of the New England Emigrant Company, which was an eastern organization [End Page 183] that raised funds to help abolitionists settle in Kansas territory so that it would not become another slave state. Olson highlights the critical role that steam engines, railroads, and other examples of the national trend towards mechanization played in ensuring Manhattan’s success. The fight over “Bleeding Kansas,” which included Manhattan, was less about Kansas than it was about the balance of power between slave states and free states in the US Congress. The rise of formal institutions in Manhattan, including churches, schools, and colleges, were often funded by northern donors and they helped to give the town a vital air of permanence. Overall, Olson masterfully weaves his local story of the situation in Manhattan with the grand tapestry of national developments during the period. Frontier Manhattan is based on extensive primary research that includes a strong mixture of settler diaries, letters, and contemporary newspaper accounts. The work includes a selected bibliography which makes its secondary research more difficult to analyze, but the overall research appears generally thorough. The book is composed of lively and easily digestible chapters that support a clearly defined overall narrative, and the quality of writing is good. The intersections between local developments on the Kansas frontier and those on the national stage could have been more explicitly highlighted. Also, a strong case can be made for an additional chapter exploring Manhattan’s role in the Populist movement that enveloped Kansas during the 1890s. These are minor critiques, however, and Frontier Manhattan is a definite accomplishment that tells the compelling story of an intrepid group of settlers who overcame challenging local and national conditions to realize their vision of a successful town. Frontier Manhattan will be a pleasant and profitable read for general audiences, students of midwestern history, and scholars interested in America’s westward movement. [End Page 184] Charles Delgadillo California State Polytechnic University at Pomona Pomona, California Copyright © 2019 Paul M. Renfro