St. Louis in the Century of Henry Shaw: a View beyond the Garden Wall.

St. Louis in the Century of Henry Shaw: A View beyond the Garden Wall. Edited and with an introduction by Eric Sandweiss. (Columbia and London: Published by the University of Missouri Press for the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Missouri Historical Society, c. 2003. Pp. xx, 251. $39.95, ISBN 0-8262-1439-8.)

Written in conjunction with a lecture and discussion series held in 2000, the eight essays in this anthology honor the 200th birthday of Henry Shaw. Shaw, one of St. Louis's greatest benefactors, founded some of the city's finest institutions, including the renowned Missouri Botanical Garden, which opened in 1859. But the book is less about Shaw, as Eric Sandweiss explains, than about "the world that he knew" (p. 7). By that Sandweiss means St. Louis, a city neither East nor West, North nor South, but a cosmopolitan crossroads that over Shaw's lifetime attracted Native Americans, freed blacks, easterners, and an entire spectrum of European immigrants.

The book's essays, which are aimed at general readers, cover selected aspects of Shaw's world--its politics, racial and ethnic issues, business life, efforts in scientific research and learning, and finally its theater, genre painting, and literature. Forty illustrations enhance the text, and the whole is elegantly printed, with footnotes at the bottom of the page (a rarity these days) and a useful index.

Arriving in the United States from England in 1819, Henry Shaw had been delegated to sell his family's hardware shipment, then sitting in the port of New Orleans without a buyer. With a stroke of foresight, Shaw took the goods to St. Louis, where over the following years he established himself as a merchant. By 1840 he was a wealthy man. The Missouri Botanical Garden, which he conceived as a place not just of pleasure but also of education about plants and their benefits, remains his most glorious creation. In 1868 he helped found another unique and beloved city space nearby, Tower Grove Park, a 289-acre stretch of walkways, shrubs and trees, pavilions, and other delights. Shaw also helped found Christ Church Cathedral, the Missouri Historical Society, the St. Louis Mercantile Library, and the Missouri School for the Blind.

The essays are all well written and informative. Sandweiss's graceful introduction sets Shaw's life and career into the context of a slave-owning culture. Kenneth H. Winn, Missouri state archivist, describes some of the contests among the city's great male politicians to control the city's destiny. Antonio F. Holland explains how the African American experience in St. Louis differed from that in other southern border cities. Walter D. Kamphoefner relates how immigrants fared in the city over Shaw's lifetime, focusing especially on the role of Germans, whose culture dominated city life in the late 1800s. In reviewing the city's economic history, eminent St. Louis historian James Neal Primm disputes Wyatt Winton Belcher's "misbegotten" 1947 thesis about the presumed "timidity" of the city's mid-century economic leadership (pp. 131, 134). Michael Long, a researcher at the Missouri Botanical Garden, explores the history of scientific research in St. Louis and provides original material on physician and amateur naturalist George Engelmann, who established St. Louis as a crossroads of scientific exchange. William J. Reese focuses on three St. Louis educators of national influence: William T. Harris, who became U.S. Commissioner of Education; Susan Blow, who established the nation's first extensive public kindergarten system; and Calvin M. Woodward, a promoter of manual training for youth. Louis Gerteis describes the "'authentic' social types" displayed in the theatrical presentations and genre paintings associated with early-nineteenth-century St. Louis (p. 191). And finally, Lee Ann Sandweiss, former Director of Publications at the Missouri Historical Society, discusses literary representations of nineteenth-century St. Louis.

As in most collections of this type, the contributions are not all original. Many of them recycle previously published material in summary form. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with such summaries, especially in a book intended for lay readers. However, for me, it made arriving at Long's essay, which exploits new material, especially interesting. Although only one essay deals explicitly with the African American experience, Gerteis's piece, which touches extensively on cultural representation of African Americans, increases the collection's contribution to our understanding of race. What is missing? To some extent class is, as most of the essays foreground white male leaders and touch on the city's social history only in passing. And except for the discussion of Susan Blow and a comment on property ownership among free women of color, the essays mention women only in a couple of footnotes. Given the prominence of St. Louis women in the late-nineteenth-century club and suffrage movements, to mention only some of their activities, I especially regretted their absence in this otherwise welcome excursion into Henry Shaw's century.

ELISABETH ISRAELS PERRY

Saint Louis University