River of Enterprise: the Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790-1850.

By Kim M. Gruenwald. Midwestern History and Culture. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, c. 2002. Pp. xvi, 214. $39.95, ISBN 0-253-34132-9.)

Previous studies seeking to identify the roots of midwestern culture have looked at the regional background of the settlers. Kim M. Gruenwald explores instead the changing economic world of the early Ohio Valley. Even here, her study is unique in that it focuses on economics rather than politics, and on merchants rather than farmers. River of Enterprise is both a biography of the Woodbridge family of Marietta, Ohio, and an economic history of the Ohio Valley's settlement.

Dudley Woodbridge, a New England merchant who settled in Marietta in 1789, referred to the location of his new home as "across the mountains"; his son spoke of the "Western Country," and his grandson of the "Buckeye State" (p. xi). Gruenwald finds these different names significant. The first indicated the merchant's ties to the East. The second emphasized the unifying force of the Ohio River and downplayed the split between its northern and southern banks. In fact, hostility toward easterners, whether bankers or politicians, and demands for internal improvements in the West unified merchants of varying sectional origins. The transportation revolution would undermine that unity. Canals and railroads shifted the focus away from the river. Instead, Ohioans concentrated on exploiting the economic resources of their state in both agriculture and the emerging manufacturing sector. The Ohio River became the southern boundary of the Old Northwest, a dividing line between freedom in Ohio and slavery south of the river.

In outlining the changing regional focus, Gruenwald provides many interesting details about how merchants conducted business. They created networks that connected their towns to the hinterlands and linked generation to generation. A number of factors could threaten a merchant's prosperity: shipments were frequently delayed, farmers often lacked the ability to pay for goods, and periodic financial panics (such as the one that occurred in 1819) undermined regional economic stability. Woodbridge's son, Dudley Jr., would imperil his economic future through an ill-advised partnership with Harman Blennerhassett, who was a participant in Aaron Burr's conspiracy. Although Gruenwald speculates that Woodbridge's role in the plot was marginal, his "fortunes declined" after being called to testify at the treason trials, and he was forced to temporarily move his business to Pittsburgh (p. 77).

Throughout the book, Gruenwald makes frequent excursions into familiar and already well charted territory; for example, her discussions of types of river transportation, patterns of subsistence fanning, and the Ohio Company's role in founding Ohio. But there is also much that is new and thought-provoking in Gruenwald's focus on the relatively understudied commercial aspects of midwestern development. River of Enterprise is a fine contribution to the growing literature on both the market revolution of the early nineteenth century and the growth of the early Midwest.

NICOLE ETCHESON

University of Texas at El Paso