A pat, scholarly reconstruction and analysis of the 1942 incident that occasioned the first federal investigation of lynching. Just weeks after America entered WWII, a black oil-mill worker named Cleo Wright assaulted a white woman and a white police officer in Sikeston, Mo., severely injuring both. Wright was seized by an angry mob, dragged across town behind a car, doused with gasoline, and burned alive. Such brazen savagery—at a time when unity against a supposedly barbaric totalitarian enemy was considered a matter of national survival—ignited public censure nationwide (though not, significantly, in Sikeston). It also, Capeci (History/Southwest Missouri State Univ.) notes, raised pressing questions —about personal responsibility and civic duty in a democratic society founded upon law and order.— While Capeci delves into the sociological and psychological roots of Wright’s violent crime and the violent reaction it instigated, he relies too much on the jargon of those disciplines and too little on original interpretation. His most provocative assertion (that the Wright case marked the beginning of a long federal activism that ultimately culminated with the prosecution of the murderers of civil rights workers Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman in the 1960s) is undercut by a chapter detailing the way in which Wright’s lynching was both demographically divergent from and similar to other Missouri lynchings. That chapter highlights the book’s awkward straddle between a micro-view (which analyzes the lynching as just one of 85 in Missouri between 1889 and 1942) and the macro-view (which posits it as a benchmark of Progressive-era federal activism). Capeci does a service in shining the light of history on the little-known incident that “signaled the beginning of the end of one kind of racial oppression,” but it raises more questions than it answers about the pivotal, lasting impact of Wright’s lynching. (7 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8131-2048-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Univ. Press of Kentucky
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
An eclectic assortment of women make for an entertaining read.
An exuberant celebration of more than 100 women who shaped the myths and realities of New York City.
In her debut book, journalist Scelfo, who has written for the New York Times and Newsweek, aims to counter histories of New York that focus only on “male political leaders and male activists and male cultural tastemakers.” As the author discovered and shows, the contributions of women have been deeply significant, and she has chosen a copious roster of personalities, gathered under three dozen rubrics, such as “The Caretakers” (pioneering physicians Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, who enacted revolutionary hygienic measures in early-20th-century tenements); “The Loudmouths” (Joan Rivers and Better Midler); and “Wall Street” (brokerage firm founder Victoria Woodhull and miserly investor Hetty Green). With a plethora of women to choose from, Scelfo aimed for representation from musical theater, law enforcement, education, social justice movements, and various professions and organizations. Some of the women are familiar (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her preservation work; Brooke Astor for her philanthropy), some iconic (Emma Lazarus, in a category of her own as “The Beacon”), and some little-known (artist Hildreth Meière, whose art deco designs can be seen on the south facade of Radio City Music Hall). One odd category is “The Crooks,” which includes several forgettable women who contributed to the city’s “cons and crimes.” The author’s brief, breezy bios reveal quirky facts about each woman, a form better suited to “The In-Crowd” (restaurateur Elaine Kaufman, hardly a crowd), entertainers (Betty Comden, Ethel Waters), and “The Wisecrackers” (Nora Ephron, Tina Fey) than to Susan Sontag, Edith Wharton, and Joan Didion. Nevertheless, the book is lively and fun, with something, no doubt, to pique anyone’s interest. Heald’s blithe illustrations add to the lighthearted mood.
An eclectic assortment of women make for an entertaining read.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58005-653-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Despite the whopping length, there's not a wasted word in this superb, swiftly moving narrative, which brings new and...
A great, troubled, and, it seems, overlooked president receives his due from the Pulitzer-winning historian/biographer McCullough (Truman, 1992, etc.).
John Adams, to gauge by the letters and diaries from which McCullough liberally quotes, did not exactly go out of his way to assume a leadership role in the tumultuous years of the American Revolution, though he was always “ambitious to excel.” Neither, however, did he shy from what he perceived to be a divinely inspired historical necessity; he took considerable personal risks in spreading the American colonists’ rebellion across his native Massachusetts. Adams gained an admirable reputation for fearlessness and for devotion not only to his cause but also to his beloved wife Abigail. After the Revolution, though he was quick to yield to the rebellion's military leader, George Washington, part of the reason that the New England states enjoyed influence in a government dominated by Virginians was the force of Adams's character. His lifelong nemesis, who tested that character in many ways, was also one of his greatest friends: Thomas Jefferson, who differed from Adams in almost every important respect. McCullough depicts Jefferson as lazy, a spendthrift, always in debt and always in trouble, whereas Adams never rested and never spent a penny without good reason, a holdover from the comparative poverty of his youth. Despite their sometimes vicious political battles (in a bafflingly complex environment that McCullough carefully deconstructs), the two shared a love of books, learning, and revolutionary idealism, and it is one of those wonderful symmetries of history that both died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. While McCullough never misses an episode in Adams's long and often troubled life, he includes enough biographical material on Jefferson that this can be considered two biographies for the price of one—which explains some of its portliness.
Despite the whopping length, there's not a wasted word in this superb, swiftly moving narrative, which brings new and overdue honor to a Founding Father.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-81363-7
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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