Illinois Books

Nicole Hahn Rafter's latest historical study of criminology and penology, Creating Born Criminals, traces the convoluted development of a category of persons known as "defective delinquents." As the name implies, this category combined criminality with a state of arrested development, which today we would call "mental retardation" or "developmental disability," but over the course of the period Rafter covers was known variously as "imbecility," "feeble-mindedness," or "psychopathy." Rafter traces the origins of what she calls "eugenic custodialism" to the founding of the Newark Custodial Asylum for Feeble-Minded Women in New York in 1878. "The Custodial," as it was called, was explicitly designed to confine "feeble-minded" women of child-bearing age in order to protect society against "bad heredity." Though some of these women would be called mentally retarded today, many were simply poor and/or guilty of sexual indiscretions. The founding of this unabashedly eugenic institution, Rafter argues, marked "the first time in U.S. history that the body itself was criminalized." Focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on New York State, Rafter goes on to describe how, in the 1910s, criminologists transformed the feebleminded criminal into the "defective delinquent." Criminologists "reconceptualized dangerousness as not violent behavior but a condition, an invisible hereditary defect carried by even minor offenders." Again, women preceded men into the realm of eugenic criminology. In 1920, New York passed its first defective delinquent law. "For the first time in the United States, prisoners deemed feebleminded" were given indefinite sentences. Although defective delinquent theory fell out of favor soon after the founding of the institutions inspired by it, Rafter found that some inmates spent virtually their entire adult lives at in prison under these laws. Inevitably, these unfortunates tended to be the truly mentally retarded, the prisoners least able to negotiate the administrative hurdles that would lead to release. In an age where incapacitative sentences appear to be making a comeback under various guises, ranging from "three-strikes" laws to the civil commitment of sex offenders, Creating Born Criminals ought to be required reading for everyone interested in criminal justice issues.

"The Creation of American Team Sports," a volume in the "Sport and Society" series of the University of Illinois Press, is an outstanding contribution to the emerging specialty of sports history. George B. Kirsch, professor of history at Manhattan College, offers a fascinating glimpse into the development of both baseball and cricket as important team sports in the mid-nineteenth century.

Kirsch describes baseball's movement from amateur to professional status after the Civil War, as well as providing an analysis of why the sport was so popular and how it eventually eclipsed cricket as a sport. In the process, he offers considerable insight into the nature of these two sports, who played them, the demographics of supporters, geographical strongholds such as Brooklyn (no wonder the Dodgers were one of the most beloved of professional baseball clubs and the most missed when they moved to Los Angeles), and the nature of clubs.

Kirsch concentrates on the well-organized amateur clubs, finding that they were more than groups of loosely-organized men who played the games. They were voluntary associations with organization and structure and dedicated to specific ideals. They held meetings beyond practices and games, and for many the club became the center of social life. They were dedicated to physical fitness and sold their sports to the greater society on that basis, but were also involved in other activities. Kirsch also documents that most of the members of the various clubs in the early era were at least in the middle classes with sufficient time and money to contribute to the sport. It was not until it was commercialized that baseball became the sport of the masses, and cricket never did so.

Baseball also cut across racial lines, there were black clubs, but these were also largely made up of members who were somewhat better off financially than average members of the race. The author also documents, and it is no surprise, that the cricket clubs had a much higher proportion of foreign born members, especially Englishmen, than did the baseball clubs. Indeed, Kirsch makes the argument that cricket's demise was tied to feelings of nationalism. Although he does not hold to the theory that cricket died out immediately after the Civil War, it was a decided backwater that did not have the enthusiasm surrounding it that baseball enjoyed. Cricket was popular among eastern elites until World War I when, Kirsch writes, "Country clubs adopted new British sports such as tennis and golf, which became more popular then cricket because of their greater appeal to participants and spectators" (p. 264).

One of the most interesting aspects of "The Creation of American Team Sports" the transition of baseball from an amateur, participatory sport to one that was professional and oriented toward spectators. The commercialization of baseball was caught up in the urbanization of America that took place in the Gilded Age. It was, perhaps, a logical outgrowth of the rising economic status of American workers, the increased amount of leisure time, and the rampant nationalism that celebrated the sport as the epitome of all that was virtuous in the nation. It was also a team sport, representative of the whole of the nation, with a decidedly individualistic aspect, in recognition of each person's uniqueness. Kirsch fully explains the many fits and starts of baseball's commercialization, highlighting difficulties with gambling, drunkenness, and other vices.

In all, Kirsch has produced a fine book that will be permanently useful to scholars, analyzing in one volume the personalities and core themes of the development of American baseball and its rivalry with cricket. An important addition to the scholarship of the American nineteenth century society, it will be a standard work for years.

Pulitzer Price winner Richard Rhodes has written a new book, "Why They Kill," as a biography of Lonnie Athens and an explication of his book and work on the origins of violence in individuals. He clearly wants to lift perceptions of the research value of Athens' work to a level that will give it the credibility it deserves in the face of opposition from vested but less-well-researched interests in the fields of criminology and sociology.

I am Creole (French and Native American). From what my grandparents and great-grandparents had told me about Louisiana of the 19th century -- the collection captures the culture and essence of the Creoles and Creole culture and society of that period. And, nothing is lost in the translation by Norman Shapiro -- keeps the meaning and flow of the language intact.

They both loved the orphaned child. But which of them knew what was best for her?

Rachael Whitaker -- Boston born and bred, she relunctantly joins her mother and stepfather on a wagon train to Illinois in the spring of 1837. When her mother falls ill, she finds her destiny becoming inextricably linked with...

Adam Hawk -- As a frontiersman, he is far below Rachael's social station. Yet he and Rachael are inevitably drawn together by their mutual love for...

Doris Ferguson -- An orphaned eight year-old girl of unknown parentage.

Adam is determined to take Dorie to see her Indian grandfather. Rachael is just as determined to stop him, no matter how far she has to follow, no matter what she has to endure. To Rachel this is not just a contest of wills -- it's a battle for a soul. But Adam has a promise to keep, and he's not one to hold a promise lightly.

Explores sexual violence against Victorian working women, Victorian notions of femininity and masculinity, and the culture of violence in which they existed. 900+ criminal and civil cases that were investigated reveal that these women were more than just victims.

Perhaps it is Phipps' virtues as a painter that invigorate these poems with so much lush color and gorgeous visual detail. Her poems are also full of music--her Caribbean lullabies and fierce stories. CROSSROADS AND UNHOLY WATER is an amazing and mature debut!

Ben Reitman was a hobo, medical doctor, anarchist, and social reformer of the early 20th century. This book reveals his world, a world that most history books tend to ignore- the world of the hobos and political radicals (they were often one and the same) of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is the world of "Hobohemia." Much of this world centered around old time Chicago (the winter quarters for most hobos) and such institutions as the Hobo College, the Dill Pickle Club, and Bughouse Square. I know that one doesn't think of hobos discussing politics, economics, literature, and the arts, but that was a large part of their world. In many ways it reminds one of the world of the Beats during the 1950's- Jack Kerouac would have fit right in. In fact, considering the surprising prevalence of jazz,"free love" and recreational drugs, it uncannily prefigured the Beat scene.

The people that Reitman knew makes an impressive list: Emma Goldman, Jack Reed, Walter Lippman, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, General Jacob Coxey, James Eads How (the "millionaire hobo") and Al Capone. The description of the many, now unknown, hobo philosophers is even more remarkable, for these were very remarkable men. These were free thinkers and intelligent and sensitive critics of the society around them. As for Reitman himself, I not only feel that I know him from reading this book, but I admire him and regret never actually meeting him.

Oh yes, while most of the men covered in this book were labeled as "radicals" by the authorities of their time, all they really wanted was to improve life for the average working man (the hobo was essentially a migrant worker) and make society a little fairer. For this they were persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, and often murdered. Some things never change....

I enjoyed Dance of the Dialectic and did a presentation on it in my Marxism class. It goes in-depth into how Marx thinks, how he uses terminalogy, how he comes up with his different terms, and explains the basis behind how Marx comes up with his theories using the dialectic. I was asked a question during my presentation of whether this was Ollman's interpretation of Marx dialectic or basically Ollman's own dialectic. The terminalogy and phrases Ollman uses to define the different characteristics of Marx's dialectic (such as 'thought concrete') I have not found in Marx's writing, leading me to believe Ollman invented some of these terms that Marx would have never used. Although it is what these terms represent that is important, it can, I suppose, also be argued that the meaning behind these terms he uses are not really what Marx conciously meant to use. These could be Ollman's understandings and assumptions of how Marx used the dialectic. Perhaps he is putting words into Marx's mouth by categorizing all the different steps of Marx's dialectic (there are 7 steps of 'level of generality' alone), which Marx may have never consciously known he was doing. I claim to be no expert on Marx, but I do have some knowledge of his writings and the history of him. I have not found much literature on Marx's dialectic compared to all the other stuff written about Marx, and this book is a great way to see inside Marx and Marx's thought process. Ollman offers an organized and very interesting analysis of Marx's thought process. I would encourage those interested in reading about Marx's method of using the Dialectic to buy this book.

How does one convey the sense of what it means to write poetry? Read "Your Card Read 'Poet-Mechanic'" in this volume to understand the power of Alice Fulton's work. How can one conceivably write a poem about dust? Read "Toward Clairvoyance" to appreciate her brilliance. This book is a work that grabs your instinct and won't let go.