Grand Plans: Business Progressivism and Social Change in Ohio’s Miami Valley, 1890–1929 by Judith Sealander

Abstract

1064 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Hoover’s reelection in 1932 by the authorities who controlled condi­ tions at Boulder City and the dam site, Roosevelt overwhelmingly carried the workers’ vote at the encampment (see pp. 171-73). A final note on style: For much of the book Stevens provides a straightforward, readable account of activities at the dam site, and he eschews needless description. But the beginnings of most chapters are bogged down with overblown prose that is more suitable for feature articles in Sunday newspapers than for serious history. For example, in breathless tone he dramatizes an important early meeting of the contractors that formed Six Companies Inc. with descriptions such as: “The groan that slipped from his chalky lips went unheard” and “Only his eyes, bright blue and sparkling, seemed truly alive” (p. 5). Readers are advised to accept such descriptive flights with a grain of salt and a dose of tolerance. The bulk of the book is good history that warrants serious attention and scholarly interest. Donald C. Jackson Dr. Jackson is assistant professor of history at Lafayette College. His book Great American Bridges and Dams was recently published by Preservation Press. Grand Plans: Business Progressivism and Social Change in Ohio’s Miami Valley, 1890—1929. By Judith Sealander. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Pp. viii + 263; illustrations, notes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $26.00. Grand Plans is a fine case study of the Progressive movement as it evolved in southwestern Ohio’s Miami Valley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Judith Sealander’s principal objective is illuminating the precise connections between area business leadership and the varieties of reform in the nine-county region. This she accomplishes through a careful examination of four avowedly Progressive projects conducted therein: an innovative program of extensive employee benefits at the National Cash Register Company, eventually the region’s largest employer; the creation, through the Miami Conser­ vancy District, of a massive and successful flood prevention system; the establishment of a pioneering business-oriented city-manager form of government in Dayton, the valley’s one major city; and businesslike experimental approaches to education at all levels in the region’s public and private schools. Collectively, the four projects brought the valley a national reputation for reform. Sealander is fully familiar with the persistent and still unresolved historical debates over whether the business community sincerely supported any Progressive measures in the areas of greater democ­ racy and greater social justice, from expanding the franchise to TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1065 electing U.S. senators directly to regulating child labor hours, wages, and working conditions; and over whether big business endorsed only those crusades it could likely manipulate for its own ends, such as nonpartisan city managers and city commissions, government regu­ latory agencies, and revamped educational administrations. To her credit, Sealander refuses to get bogged down in lengthy historio­ graphical reviews but instead concentrates on her four projects, letting their histories govern her conclusions. Also to her credit, she refuses to categorize the business leaders behind those projects—and, especially important to historians of technology, their engineering and managerial associates—as either heroes or villains. As Sealander persuasively shows, these reformers had multiple motivations, altruistic as well as selfish. Their “grand plans” incorpo­ rated scientibc management, moral uplift, and—of special relevance here—massive civil engineering. Under the inspired leadership of engineer Arthur Morgan, later president of Antioch College and then brst chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors, the Miami Conservancy District proved the most successful of the four projects. Using unconventional methods, including the construc­ tion of several enormous earthen reservoirs and a literal reshaping of the valley’s topography, Morgan’s system not only made the region “forever floodproof” (p. 54) at remarkably low cost but also provided many acres of public parkland together with much improved farm­ land. Given the size and complexity of the project, one exceeded only by the Panama Canal, it was perhaps inevitable that a new public legal entity, with exceptional powers of eminent domain, would be created. These engineering and administrative feats, along with Morgan’s scheme to better the lot of ordinary workers hired...