The Western Journals of Nehemiah and Henry Sanford, 1839-1846 by Kenneth E. Lewis

Abstract

Book Reviews 159 with accounts of the local “drama” over the creation and maintenance of each theater complementing descriptions of the onstage theatrics. With booming economies—including copper mining in Calumet and logging in Manistee—a growing populace required diversion to stay out of trouble. Once upon a Time at the Opera House describes how these amusements were supplied and consumed. Michigan history devotees will find this handsomely designed book noteworthy. The stories in Coldwater, Manistee, and Calumet illustrate how collective amusements created a sense of community and town pride, and how they meshed with area custom (in Calumet, for example, the mining company’s strong influence led to the establishment of “mine time” versus “town time,” impacting theater attendance). But of equal interest is the broader view of how mainstream America in this era wound down. With its range of all-ages-friendly specialty acts, vaudeville was the primary entertainment form. Folks also liked familiarity: the excitement of Eliza crossing the ice in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the moralism of the protemperance drama Ten Nights in a Bar Room; the novelty of non-actor celebrities (boxing champion John L. Sullivan, in his 1885 stage act, assumed “classic postures of Greek and Roman statuary”); and the loyalty of troupers like Jefferson, Maude Adams, and James O’Neill, who crisscrossed the country for decades in rip-roaring fare such as The Count of Monte Cristo, East Lynne, Seven Keys to Baldpate, and H.M.S. Pinafore. They enthralled audiences while supporting traditional Eurocentric values. The advent of motion pictures led to a sharp decline in the number of touring theater troupes, and sound on film further killed their ubiquity, but Harris preserves their legacy in lengthy appendices filled with “extra added attractions.” The author provides lively prose, and even if his use of perhaps-too-clever subheads throughout takes some getting used to, this is only a quibble over a worthy volume. Edwin M. Bradley Central Michigan University Kenneth E. Lewis, ed. The Western Journals of Nehemiah and Henry Sanford, 1839-1846. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019. Pp. 378. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth: $49.95. America’s antebellum West was marked by change, innovation, and economic opportunity for those who sought to settle and cultivate the vast array of natural resources the newly acquired territory’s agricultural 160 The Michigan Historical Review and mineral prospects offered. Mass forced migrations of Native Americans and land acquisitions such as the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, coupled with expanding waterways like the Erie Canal and the advancement of steam-power and railroads, allowed for fast and convenient trade and travel routes. While New Englanders and countless immigrants poured into the Great Lakes region in pursuit of new homes and brighter futures, many already wealthy and secure Eastern industrialists saw an opportunity to use the growing nation’s capitalistic framework and changing land policies to their own advantage. In Kenneth E. Lewis’s The Western Journals of Nehemiah and Henry Sanford, 1839-1846, the vital role these Easterners played in this economic transformation is masterfully chronicled through his use of the journals that narrated the westward speculative travels of Nehemiah Sanford and his son, Henry. Lewis provides guidance and context through use of narration, travel maps, and secondary scholarship as his audience is immersed into this world through the lens of the Sanfords. Introducing each of the three journals in sequence, Lewis fills in gaps and takes readers on a journey through this tumultuous and turbulent time in history preceding the Civil War, marked by a convergence of changing sociocultural norms and economic risk-taking. Unregulated, excessive bank loans contributed to a series of economic panics through the nineteenth century, to which the government responded by passing the Land Act of 1820, barring many immigrants and other settlers from acquiring loans with which to purchase tracts of land in the West. Seeing a lucrative investment opportunity to act as land speculating “commercial middle-men,” the Sanfords flocked to the West in search of land with the most prosperous agricultural potential to profit from prospective settlers (p. 7). In doing so, “their actions in selecting land and promoting its sale influenced the geographical form of...