SOME PUBLICATIONS Iowa State Geography. By Alison E. Aitchison. Boston: Ginn and Company. 1921. Pp. 168. Plates, maps. The schools of the State of Iowa have so long been dependent on "supplements" for their knowledge of the geography of their own Commonwealth that any serious attempt to present this phase of information in separate and adequate form is most welcome. Miss Aitchison's book is a notable contribution in the field. It is written with the purpose of presenting the geography of the State to the children of the intermediate grades of the public schools. Somewhat of the scope of the work may be obtained from the following chapter headings: "Getting Acquainted with Ourselves"; "The Wonders Beneath Our Feet"; "Stories of the Past and Present"; "Iowa's Greatest Industry - Agriculture"; "Our Chief Crops"; "The Live-Stock Industry"; "The New Farmer"; "Iowa Manufactures"; "Transportation"; "The Birthright of the Children of Iowa"; "Facts and Figures". The book has little in it of didactic and classical geography and much of the kind of information in regard to the State-its resources, its products, and its people that the child can lay hold of and appreciate. The material is not abstract or foreign to the child's world—it is direct and concrete and has to do with the things which the pupil can easily observe about him. It is written in such a way as to give the child a very clear picture of an individual State his own State with enough history to give it tradition, enough facts to lead to pride in his Commonwealth, and enough details to whet one's appetite for more. The illustrations, which are numerous, are well chosen and the maps are adequate. One of the features of the text is the frequent interpolation of questions and suggestions to the reader with the object of causing him to think about the subject matter and to make comparison and further investigation in the world outside of books. Reminiscences of Newcastle, Iowa. Dictated by Sarah BrewerBonebright and written by Harriet Bonebright-Closz. Des Moines: Historical Department of Iowa. 1921. Pp. 307. Plates. This volume presents the story of the settlement of Newcastle, now Webster City, Iowa, as related by Mrs. Bonebright who came to Hamilton County in 1848. In addition to the eighteen chapters dealing with the frontier living conditions, there are five appendices, including notes on Indian troubles in Iowa and a number of poems by Harriet M. Bonebright-Closz. The book is attractively printed and bound and contains numerous illustrations of frontier activities and equipment which add a great deal to the available information of pioneer life. Most Iowans of to-day are unfamiliar with the implements of a generation ago. Frow, linsey-woolsey, lizard, grain cradle, hetchel, and ash leach are words which, in their pioneer significance, have almost disappeared from the language. This volume, indeed, contains information about the intimate life of the frontier which is seldom found, even in scattered sources. How the pioneer women made soap, a surgical operation, amusements, names, Indian visitors, material and styles of garments, jerking venison, recipes for corn dodgers, weddings, quilt designs, weather, medicinal preparations, charms, and farm implements are a few of the many details of frontier life portrayed in this volume. It is unfortunate that an index was omitted for the material is so valuable that a guide would have been acceptable. Governor Edward Coles. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library. 1920. Pp. 435. Plates. This volume is published as the first number of the Biographical Series and the fifteenth volume of the Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library. It is largely a reprint of the Sketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois, and of the Slavery Struggle of 1823-4, prepared for the Chicago Historical Society by E. B. Washburne in 1881. This story empha sizes the struggle in Illinois to permit slavery, a part of the State's history now little known. In addition there is much information. concerning individuals who had a part in the development of Illinois and the West. A voluminous appendix contains reprints of court documents, letters, and editorials relating to Governor Coles's part in the slavery struggle. There are also a number of documents concerning the work of Edward Coles as Register of the Land Office at Edwardsville where it appears many French claims were brought for settlement. A history of the Ordinance of 1787, read by Edward Coles before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1856 is the final document in the appendix. A good index adds to the value of the publication. A monograph entitled Operations of the 2d American Corps in the Somme Offensive, August 8 to November 11, 1918, has been prepared by the Historical Branch, War Plans Division, General Staff. A report entitled War Work of the Bureau of Standards has recently been issued by the Department of Commerce. Protestantism and the Masses, by James J. Coale, and The Psychology of the Radical, by Stewart Paton, are two articles of current interest in the October issue of The Yale Review. Two Incidents of Revolutionary Time, by William Renwick Riddell, is one of the papers in the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology for August. The Ohio University, by Charles W. Super, and The Mayflower Compact; and Samuel Fuller, the Pilgrims' Doctor, by Charles H. Bangs, are two of the papers in the July issue of Americana. An article of interest to Mississippi Valley history students is one by Edna F. Campbell entitled New Orleans at the Time of the Louisiana Purchase which appears in the July number of The Geographical Review. Social Problems in the Nineteenth Century, by C. R. Fay, The Dominions and Foreign Affairs, by A. F. Pollard, and The Teaching of History in Schools, by D. G. E. Hall, are three articles in the July issue of History. A History of The New York Public Library is continued in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library for July and August. A List of Recent References on the Income Tax, compiled under the direction of Herman H. B. Meyer, has been issued by the Library of Congress. Two articles of general interest in The South Atlantic Quarterly for October are Two Industrial Revolutions, by Broadus Mitchell, and American Negro Poetry, by Newman I. White. Two articles in the American Anthropologist for April-June are of interest to students of the Middle West: An Unusual Group of Mounds in North Dakota, by George F. Will, and The Need of Archaeologic Research in the Middle West, by Frederick Houghton. History of the New York Times is a volume written by Elmer Davis and published by that newspaper. The publication is of interest because of the general history incidentally included as well as from the standpoint of newspaper development and influence. Broadus Mitchell is the author of a monograph, The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South, published as a recent number of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. A Reference History of the War, compiled and written by Irwin Scofield Guernsey, has recently been published by Dodd, Mead and Company. An extensive bibliography adds to the value of the publication. The fortieth volume of the Archives of Maryland contains the Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of Maryland, 1737-1740. The Journal of American Folk-Lore for October-December, 1920, contains a series of articles in French relating to Canada. Among these are the following: Chansons et Rondes de Laprairie, by Gustave Lanctôt and C. -Marius Barbeau; Formulettes, Rimettes et Devinettes du Canada, by E. -Z. Massicotte; and Photographies de Gens et de Choses du Terroir Canadien, by C. -Marius Barbeau. The September number of The American Economic Review contains the following articles and papers: The Movement of Real Wages, 1890-1918, by Paul H. Douglas and Frances Lamberson; Recent Developments in the Federal Farm Loan System, by George E. Putnam; Railway Service and Regulation in Port Terminals, by C. O. Ruggles; and The Efficacy of Changes in the Discount Rates of the Federal Reserve Banks, by Anna Youngman. The Jolly Puritan, by Henry W. Lawrence, Jr., German Views of War Responsibility, by R. W. Kelsey, and College Course in General United States History, by R. H. Gabriel, are three of the papers in The Historical Outlook for October. Standardizing Library Work and Collateral Reading, a report of a committee of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, and letters from Joseph Schafer and Harold Rugg entitled The Methods and Aims of Committee Procedure are also included. Concerning Commission Government in Des Moines is the title of a collection of brief comments on the Des Moines city government found in the July number of the National Municipal Review. Other papers are: Ohio Legislature Denies Relief to Insolvent Cities, by William M. Thomas; Unscrambling Michigan's Government, by Lent D. Upson; The L'Enfant Plan and the Botanic Garden, by Harlean James; and City-Manager Movement, by Harrison Gray Otis. The April number of the Smith College Studies in History contains Letters of Ann Gillam Storrow to Jared Sparks, edited by Frances Bradshaw Blanshard. In the issue for July there appears The Westover Journal of John A. Selden, Esqr., 1858-1862, with introduction and notes by John Spencer Bassett. Generating Cycles Reflected in a Century of Prices, by Henry Ludwell Moore, Fundamental Problems of Federal Income Taxa |