Saint Louis University Books

The essays in this book are titled as follows: 'The Jewish Primary School', 'The Disciple of the Wise', 'The Rabbinical Student' 'The Religion of the Pharisee' 'Jewish Thought as Reflected in the Halakah' ' 'The Gaon.Rabbi Elijah Wilna'
'Rabbi Israel Salanter' ' Zechariah Frankel' Isaac Hirsch Weiss'
'Solomon Schecter ' ' David Hoffman'.
The biographical essays are of special interest and value, but the whole of the work is rich in Jewish learning and insight.

The essays in this book were based on speeches given by the author between 1901 and 1922. Some of the essays were enlightening, others less so.

Generally, I liked the speeches on Jewish education and institutions better than the speeches about individuals; the former speeches were especially useful for someone with limited cultural literacy, while the latter tended to assume too much background knowledge (with the possible exception of Ginzberg's excellent essay on Israel Salanter).

A few points I thought were interesting:

*Ginzberg's explanation of how Poland became so heavily Jewish. In medieval Poland, Jews were allowed to enter a wide variety of businesses, while in western Europe Jews were confined to a few trades. Unsurprisingly, Poland became more popular with Jews, western Europe less so.

*An essay on Jewish childhood education points out that early childhood education begin with biblical Hebrew, so that students could learn to follow adult prayers as soon as possible. By contrast, I wasted my childhood Sunday School mornings on conversational Hebrew - useful if you are moving to Israel, but not so useful in shul.

*An essay on the Talmud emphasizes that scholars were expected to master the secular sciences as well as Torah; he notes that St. Jerome, one of the 4th-century Christian Church Fathers, actually criticized Jews' interest in medicine. By contrast, today some Jews seem to think that the most "authentic" or "traditional" type of Jewish education is limited to Torah and a minimal level of secular literacy.

*An essay on Salanter (a leader in the Musar movement, a 19th-century group focusing on moral regeneration) does a nice job of pointing out Salanter's wisdom and purity: noting, for example, that Salanter believed that equanimity of temper is a fine thing for oneself, but that "Trust in God . . . is an abominable sin if applied to shift from us our obligations towards our fellow man; one must not trust in God at the expense of those who seek our help." Salanter was also something of an ascetic; when he died, his room contained only his tallit and tefilin. Ginzberg also points out that Musar was actually controversial during Salanter's lifetime; some Jews worried that Musar was a potential separatist sect.

*His essay on Zechariah Frankel makes a case for something resembling Conservative Judaism (though the phrase never creeps into his essays, since Conservative Judaism as a separate denomination did not exist at the time of his 1901 speech). He wrote: "the sanctity of the Sabbath reposes not upon the fact that it was proclaimed on Sinai, but on the fact that the Sabbath idea found for thousands of years its expression in Jewish souls . . . practical Judaism [ ] is not concerned with origins, but regards the institutions as they have come to be." Regardless of its origin, Judaism is how Jews express religiousness, and is thus our way "to grasp the highest ideas and to keep them clearly before them".

Some negatives:

*His last few essays, focusing on a few Western European religious intellectuals, were very hard to follow for anyone without an enormous level of background knowledge. One example: an essay on Solomon Schechter states: "The letter of Rabbi Hushiel dispelled with one stroke the legend of the four captives, with which Jewish history in the West was supposed to start." A footnote explaining Rabbi Hushiel and "the legend of the four captives" might have been a good idea.

*Incredible defensiveness about East European Judaism, which Ginzberg goes out of his way to compare favorably with Sephardic Judaism- perhaps because at that time, East Europeans were sometimes viewed as a little backward.

As a local historian compiling data on free people of color, I found Ms. Winch's book to be outstanding. Her research into the backgrounds of the elite helped me track emigrants from Norfolk, Virginia to St. Louis.

I read the original book by Clyprian Clamorgan published in 1858. I am sure this edition will be equally as good. The author takes you on an interesting and humorous journey through the black community of " the colored aristocracy " in St.Louis during the middle of the 19th century. The book provides sketches of the members of "the colored aristocracy" who move in the same circles, who by education,wealth, or ability form an elite of the race....... Good and informative reading.

The French title for this book is translated "Saint-Simon and the Court System." Neither title is correct. Le Roy Ladurie has written two books. The first six chapters is a discussion of social hierarchy as interpreted by the duc de Saint-Simon looking at the court of Louis XIV. The last two chapters are a history of the Regency (1715-23). The first chapters contain no narrative history except for a biography of Saint-Simon and the last two contain no social analysis but are a discussion of the political history of the Regency.

To understand much of Le Roy Ladurie's books, the reader should know that the French education system for potential university students emphasizes on exams something called "explication de texte." The student is given a quote by someone (a politician or writer) and maybe a date. The student is expected in an essay to identify the person making the quote and that person's importance, the importance of the quote, and how it relates to history or literature or philosophy or whatever in order to demonstrate the student's knowledge and education. This book like many of Le Roy Ladurie's books is an extended explication de texte. The text in this case is thousands of pages of the memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755).

Saint-Simon lived at the court of Louis XIV centering on Versailles starting in 1691 until the king's death in 1715. Then, when his friend the duc d'Orléans became Regent for the five-year-old Louis XV, Saint-Simon had an insider's view of court politics until his friend's death in 1723. Shortly thereafter Saint-Simon was told to leave the court. He was a has-been at age 48 or, more precisely, a never-was. His most important job had been as Ambassador to Spain to negotiate a marriage between Louis XV and a Spanish princess, a marriage that never took place. Some fifteen years after leaving court Saint-Simon began writing his memoirs.

Saint-Simon was an aristocratic prig, a puritanical gossip who believed that, as a duke and a peer of Frence, his class of people deserved the highest honors and positions within French politics after the royal family and its relatives. He described people of lesser social origin as vile nobodies, people from nowhere, and people who did not deserve their positions. He refused to believe that talent could or should allow people to rise in society. He dismissed immorality and corruption, believed illegitimate children were immoral because they were the products of immorality, detested the Jesuits, and despised Louis XIV because the king never granted Saint-Simon his due. The king in one of only three conversations he had with the little duke told Saint-Simon that he had to learn to hold his tongue. Louis XIV could not abide people who chattered incessantly, criticized others openly, or talked about people behind their backs. The king would never pick someone for a position who had so little self-control. Le Roy Ladurie does not mention this story.

Nor does Le Roy Ladurie mention that there exists another source for the end of Louis XIV's reign, the Journal of the Marquis de Dangeau who kept a daily record of events at court from 1684 until his death in 1719. Saint-Simon began his preparations for writing his memoirs by annotating Dangeau's journal, especially anytime the marquis mentions someone. The little duke would then write out as much as he could remember about that person. Although Dangeau has never been published in English, Saint-Simon has had several editions, all of them abridged. The best French editions of his work are thousands of pages long with annotations to explain events and identify people or Saint-Simon's unusual vocabulary. The little duke's style is said to have influenced Proust with its niggling details and loving idiosyncratic descriptions.

Saint-Simon's memoirs are filled with the names of over 10,000 people. They are like an extended phone book with long descriptions of this person or that while the plot takes a back seat. Saint-Simon was an intellectual aristocrat who knew lots of people and, like the Bourbons, he learned nothing and forgot nothing. His memoirs are his revenge for every slight, real or imagined. Yet, in some ways they are the only published source for a lot of the history of this forgotten period of French history. Le Roy Ladurie, however, ignores the history of France from 1691 until 1715 and then gives us eighty pages of political history for the Regency.

Le Roy Ladurie is mesmerized by Saint-Simon's discussion of cabals at court in 1709. He wrote an article on this section of the memoirs over 25 years ago. He repeated his analysis in a series of lectures at Johns Hopkins twenty years ago. Simply stated by 1709 according to Saint-Simon, Louis XIV's court had three groupings: the king's courtiers, his son's courtiers, and his adult grandson's courtiers. Yet, like Saint-Simon, Le Roy Ladurie goes into overtime explaining this person's relation to that one, and how the whole mess worked. The fact that people gathered around the heir to the throne or the heir's heir is not news. It was normal behavior in a monarchical system. Le Roy Ladurie's mistake is to think that the snapshot given in 1709 has an existence that extended into the Regency. Thus, these groups seem like political parties with a life of their own.

Louis XIV had the misfortune to survive both his son who died in 1711 and his grandson who died in 1712. In addition, some of the major personalities in these factions also died. Yet, Le Roy Ladurie goes on about this cabal and that having to be placated by the Regent with no evidence from Saint-Simon to support the claim that these groups maintained any cohesion after 1709 much less sfter the deaths of their leaders.

This book is filled with typos as well as mistakes by the author. For example, he discusses the first known writing of Saint-Simon coming from the death of Louis XIV's daughter-in-law in 1689, except that she died in 1690. He has people living for years after they had died, repeats in the text what he has said in the footnotes previously. I gave this book three stars because it has some value but it is not an exciting read except for those of us who have an interest in this period of French history, one that was recently called "The Black Hole of French History" because so little research or writing has been done on it. In that sense, Le Roy Ladurie has made a significant contribution.

Gossip and intrigue abound in this brilliant new book on the Court of Louis XIV. Leroy Ladurie is simply one of the smartest historians around. He looks at the Sun King's multi-layered and busy court through the lens of the Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755), a courtier and phenomenal chronicler of court life who left thousands of pages describing the intrigues, personalities, activities and gossip of life at Versailles. The result is a fascinating portrait of life under Louis XIV, a life driven by hierarchy, rank, and blood. Great book about obsessive, ruthless social climbing at its worst and best.

Amy S. Greenberg, Cause for Alarm. (University of Princeton Press 1998). Amy S. Greenberg is an Assistant Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. She is tackling a largely male-dominated subject, but also one that is for the most part unexplored by historians. Her introduction is jam-packed with information. The introduction is set like that of a Greek drama, bringing the reader up to speed before the meat of the book is consumed. She does an excellent job of placing the volunteer fire fighter on a pedestal and then glorifying him as a demagogue. Later on we see the institution of volunteer firemen corrupted by several factors, and the firemen, like actors, take a great fall from grace due to their tragic flaws.

Greenberg covers several aspects of her work in the cities of Baltimore, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Social, political, and cultural aspects seem to be the main issue here. This book also marks the transition from volunteer fire companies to paid full-time departments as well as the change in the American way of thinking of how and who should fight these fires. It is demonstrated in this book how the volunteers appeared Superman-like on paper as well in the public eye.

The "power trip" some of these men experienced would contribute to their downfall. Always wanting to be the first company on scene, drinking and swearing, and other daralous behavior that the personnel engaged in helped put them out of business.

In an age with any out television, firefighting was a form of entertainment for these men. Simply put, modernization helped to rid the large cities of competitive volunteer fire companies, only to see them replaced by paid personnel. (Don't worry most firefighters of today are every bit as competitive as the ones portrayed in this book) "Firemen provided the stability and order that allowed for the growth of professionalism. And with that transformation, the volunteer fireman fell from grace." Here we see how volunteers started to be seen as a burden, rather than a help to society. Why would a shop owner want to lose his employees for several hours to fight a fire that did not endanger his livelihood? Or better yet why would he close the shop to go to the rescue of some one he had no vested interest in. These are the issues that are struggled with inside the book.

Several documents are used in this book as well as primary and secondary sources. R. N. Seiel gave a favorable review in Choice (January 1999). This book would contribute to anyone's understanding of this subject matter. Today most people would not understand the act of fighting fire and receiving no compensation for it. This book is, as advertised, a cause for alarm.

A movie of the life of the Chouteaus would have to be one of those generational epics running as a week-long series on channels such as HBO. "This family [featured] energetic, adventurous men destined to play significant roles in the advance of the United States and Euro-American civilization westward from the Mississippi River." The Chouteau men were active mostly before the Louisiana Purchase. By their explorations and commercial ventures in large parts of the area of the Purchase and contacts with Native Americans, they eased the growth of the United States beyond the Mississippi River. Some of the Chouteau men were prototypes of the mountain men who became legendary in American lore; though the Chouteau men were usually more entrepreneurial (rather than individualistic) in their activities and aims.

One of them spent time in a Spanish jail in the Southwest for misunderstandings with Spanish authorities about his presence in Spanish territory. And rather than trapping themselves and selling or trading the seasonal catch, most of the Chouteau men worked to create business networks of Native American tribes, European and American buyers, and varied commercial interests such as transportation and banking. In general, the Chouteau men also recognized the desirability and in some ways necessity of relations with governmental authorities.

The first of the Chouteau men were actually children of a man who has come to be known historically as Leclede and a Marie Therese, the wife of Rene Auguste Chouteau, who after some time in New Orleans returned to France abandoning her. The children were given the Chouteau name because the mother had to keep this name since the parents' Catholicism forbid them from divorcing. It was Laclede who set the pattern for the following two generations of the Chouteau men who had such an influence on opening the West for Euro-American settlement and development. In sympathy with French claims to upper parts of the Mississippi at the time of the French and Indian War, Laclede "committed himself to the proposition of constructing and operating one of the first franchised trading operations in the barely explored wilderness of the Mississippi Valley." In 1763 with his teenaged son Auguste a member of his crew, Laclede set out by keelboat up the Mississippi from New Orleans. During this trading venture, in the Spring 1764, Laclede named a site where cabins for shelter and sheds for storage of furs had been built Saint Louis in honor of the French king. This was the origin of the city of Saint Louis which at first an outpost, later became a key crossroad in trade between the western lands and the eastern towns and cities. Before long, Laclede's wife moved from New Orleans to Saint Louis with their children. One of these was named Pierre Chouteau.

Auguste and Pierre Chouteau and their male children carried on the tradition begun by their father Laclede. Pierre's eight sons especially had an incomparable role as sources of information about the areas and in advancing trade and other commercial interests as a prelude to settlement as they pursued their varied interests. Hoig--professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma--follows the adventures and accomplishments of the Chouteaus through developments relating to the Louisiana Purchase up to the Civil War.

There are many legendary explorers and pioneers in the story of the United States' westward expansion. But the Chouteau's are unique in that they were generations of one family whose combined efforts largely in pursuit of business opportunities and becoming wealthy are beyond compare.

In the steamboat era, St. Louis, Gateway to the West, was the fourth largest city in the US, while Chicago was little more than a crossroads. If one were to write a history, the first chapter would be the story of the railroad system built by the State of Missouri. It included a network of roads--Missouri Pacific, Frisco, Iron Mountain, and North Missouri (Wabash)-designed to fan out across the state bringing all traffic to St. Louis. Stock was sold to land owners and county governments, who hoped railroads would increase the value of land-locked land. Bonds were guaranteed by the state.

But Chicago interests, unencumbered by threats of Civil War, won the competition. Backed by Boston financiers, they completed the Hannibal and St. Joseph (CB&Q) across the state before completion of any of the state railroads. Along the way, 43 were killed on the inaugural run of the Missouri Pacific when a bridge over the Gasconade River collapsed. Those killed included some of the most progressive boosters in the state. The state railroads went bankrupt. The state assumed their debts. Missourians paid twice for their railroads. Costs that were scandalous in construction of the Transcontinental Railroad through mountainous terrain, were paid quietly by Missourians for railroads built through their rolling hills.

In the second chapter, Missouri interests hoped that Kansas City or St. Joseph would be selected as the Eastern terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. Possibly a Southwestern route would be built from Kansas City that would avoid the difficulties of keeping a railroad passable through the mountains in Winter. Again Chicago interests won. Omaha was selected (and railroad building across Iowa took off with vigor).

Jackson's volume describes the third chapter. Chicago had built a drawbridge across the Mississippi at Davenport, IA, in 1855, but it was destroyed by a steamboat collision and fire in 1856. A young Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad in a lawsuit filed against the bridge company (and supported by St. Louis interests). He won the argument that bridges must permit free passage of both railroads and steamboats. Now forces were building to build more Iowa bridges. St. Louis needed a bridge to compete, but the Mississippi in St. Louis is a much more formidable obstacle and bridge building was still a primitive art. Enter James Eads, not really an engineer, but a charismatic, accomplished, doer of projects. He had backing from Pennsylvania Railroad interests (the leading US railroad, whose tracks ended on the East side of the river at St. Louis). Active in the bridge project were president, J. Edgar Thompson, vp Thomas Scott, and Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie is best known as the builder of what became US Steel in Pittsburgh, but he began his career at the Pennsylvania Railroad, where his business skills were noted. He was protege to Thomas Scott. In the Eads' Bridge story, he was present as representative of Keystone Bridge, a private company founded by Pennsylvania Railroad interests to specialize in the construction of iron bridges especially for railroads. Keystone constructed the bridge to James Eads' design.

Author Jackson notes the Pennsylvania Railroad's interest in the Texas Pacific and the Northern Pacific as well as the Atlantic and Pacific (Frisco) and North Missouri (Wabash) in Missouri and suggests this indicates a desire to build a transcontinental railroad system. Its more likely the Pennsylvania thought it important to take care of its feeder lines. Railroads make their money on ton miles. Freight that runs the length of the system is most profitable. Therefore, its important for an East-West system like the Pennsylvania to maintain relationships with lines to the West so they can swap traffic. They do this with personal relationships, and by lending management expertise (as board members) and prestige to assist with financing-preferably without investing the railroad's own capital.

In an age of Enron and Adelphia, its interesting to see the ethics involved in some of the transactions. Robber barons like Jay Gould are known to have bled railroads dry while operating them in bankruptcy. Usually this was accomplished by executives personally owning businesses that sold key supplies to their own railroad-coal, railroad ties, bridges, etc. Profitable construction companies was the device used in the Credit Mobile scandal related to the Transcontinental Railroad. The book suggests that executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad also engaged in these self-dealing practices, practices that would be considered unethical today.

The book tells the full details of the construction of the bridge including the use of caissons to sink the pier foundations to bedrock and the discovery of the bends as the affliction of workers who worked in high air pressure and decompressed quickly. The bridge is mostly iron but used some of the first steel, and fabrication of this steel was troublesome. Numerous difficulties were encountered. The book includes copious illustrations. Its well written and tells the story well.

The book ends in chapter four of our railroad history. Jay Gould becomes the owner of most Missouri railroads and leasee of the Eads' Bridge. He assembled the structure (after years of delay) that finally created a terminal railroad association to construct the first Union Station and the necessary trackage to connect the bridge and the railroads of St. Louis. Other sources indicate Jay Gould's railroad empire in Missouri was assembled to force admission to the Iowa Pool, a revenue sharing arrangement for the lines that connected with the Transcontinental Railroad. He failed in that aspect, but succeeded in being a robber baron, though his empire collapsed soon after his death.

In the end, Eads' Bridge probably came too late to have much impact on the St. Louis-Chicago competition. It did alleviate a serious bottleneck that otherwise might have been a limitation, but the bridge was expensive, and the tolls charged by Jay Gould were high. According to Jackson, the bridge still had $5MM in bonded indebtedness recently-even now long after it is obsolete, but it still is a much deserved landmark to the Spirit of St. Louis.

I first read this book for a graduate class in education, and I am now purchasing it for the second time. St. Louis is in the process of dismantling its voluntary desegregation program, and leaders are finding themselves asking the same questions they were at the program's inception. They are finding there are no clear solutions to the problem of race and equality in American society and schools, as evidenced in this excellently researched book.

TS Eliot said it better than I ever could: "And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Through this book Wells and Crain provide us with maps for our journey of understanding the dynamics of race in the U.S. Our paths, their work illustrates time and again, are left up to us.

This book will appeal only to people who have a keen interest in the University. Alumni, parents, students... that sort of thing. Dr. Morrow, who for years was an important professor and dean at the University, does an excellent job presenting the minutiae of university finances, governance and development. While this can be expected to be tedious for a general audience, it's good stuff if you're a prospective university president or dean! That said, student and faculty life get the short end of the stick. You'll learn all about what William Eliot, Robert Brookings and Arthur Compton did for Wash U, but you'll not get much exposure to what the students or general public made of the place.

Since it was essentially a commuter college for 100 years, the history of this university largely mirrors that of St. Louis. It saw its best days when the city was thriving, namely, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era (aka from about 1910 to 1930). The first few chapters in which Morrow weaves together the founding and early history of the University with that of the young and booming city are the best in the book.

"The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St. Louis," by William E. Foley and C. David Rice, University of Illinois Press, 2000. This is the story of two step-brothers, Auguste and Pierre Chouteau, who were the leading fur traders in the early days of St. Louis. The book tells the story of St. Louis from their point of view from its founding by their stepfather, Pierre de Laclede Liguest, in December, 1763, until Missouri statehood in 1821.

Laclede was a French businessman from New Orleans. He set out to establish a fur trading post in Upper Louisiana for the New Orleans firm of Maxent, Laclede and Company. France had already lost the French and Indian War, which resulted in France ceding all claim to territory in North America, but the treaty had not yet been completed. France was expected to cede claim to territory East of the Mississippi, but retain rights to Louisiana Territory on the West Bank. Hence, French settlers from Illinois settlements at Cahokia and Kalkaskia who sought to avoid British rule, moved to the new colony named after Louis IX, patron saint of King Louis XV of France. Word that the western territory had been ceded to Spain in the Treaty of Fountainbleau did not reach the colony until 1764.

Laclede and later the Chouteaus were first rate diplomats. Their business consisted of trading manufactured goods to the Indians-especially the Osages-in exchange for furs. The furs were then shipped to Europe via New Orleans. Competitive British traders operated out of Montreal and the Great Lakes. They were better supplied with trade goods by their British suppliers. Success of the business depended on the relationship developed with the Indians. The power of the Chouteaus was enhanced by intermarriage of family members with other traders in the area. Their contacts served them well in dealing with the various changes in government-both with the Spanish and later with the Americans.

Although Laclede died with debts outstanding, the Chouteaus enjoyed reasonable profits through most of their business careers. The fur trading business was continued by their sons, but after the Louisiana Purchase brought the territory into the US, the US recognized Spanish land grants. The Chouteaus became major land owners. Real estate investment became a major business line.

In the 19th Century, St. Louis grew to be a major river city, primarily because of its position as the gateway to the west and access by steamboat. Robert Fulton's steamboat was invented in 1807; by 1818 steamboats traveled throughout the Mississippi River system. Surprisingly, the book makes not a single reference to steamboats. Apparently the Chouteaus continued to ship their furs by bateau and made little or no use of steamboats. Similarly, they were not steamboat investors. Although they sometimes shipped their furs to Montreal rather than New Orleans, there is no mention of business dealings with New York or Philadelphia. We are left wondering who brought the first steamboats to St. Louis and who built the famous wharves.

It seems likely the Chouteaus had excellent language skills. They spoke French, they apparently spoke the Osage language, they probably spoke Spanish, but did they speak English? Maybe not. This aspect is not clarified.

This book is a paperback edition of the book originally published in 1983. It provides an interesting perspective of the early history of St. Louis. References. Index. Genealogy. Maps. Pictures.