Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence

By Barbara Klaw

by Garry Wills

Doubleday & Co., $10.00

What the Declaration of Independence has to say, critic Carry Wills argues in his new book, was not thought at first to be of monumental importance. It was the act of declaring ourselves independent that mattered: this was a necessary step in securing foreign—particularly French—aid for our Revolutionary War effort, as foreign governments could scarcely be expected to wade into a family squabble between England and one of her colonies. But not until after the War of 1812 did Americans come to regard seriously the content of the document.

This content, as Jefferson first wrote it, as the delegates in Philadelphia amended it, and as we have come to regard it, is the subject of Mr. Wills’s elegantly written and stimulating book. Jefferson was clearly bothered by even the smallest changes made in his draft, and Wills includes at the end of the book a copy of the document Jefferson circulated among his friends, showing precisely what had been added to and omitted from his original version. The author also includes a provocative prologue arguing that Lincoln, “a 19th century romantic,” enshrined the Declaration in a way that would have been incomprehensible to that “18th century empiricist,” Jefferson.

Deep Like the Riversi Education in the Slave Quarter Community, 1831–1865

By Barbara Klaw

by Thomas L. Webber

W. W. Norton, $14.95

Don’t be intimidated by the rather academic trappings of this fine book. It tells us in meticulous detail made doubly moving by its unemotional tone what slave owners sought to teach, and to keep from, their slaves and what lessons those slaves actually learned. One of the first skills acquired in the slave quarter was how to spot hypocrisy. Such practices as dropping the words “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” from a slave wedding service made it obvious to slaves that even religion was being doctored to serve the white man’s purpose. What black people learned from the brutal punishments meted out to those caught with a book was how invaluable a skill reading was.

Quoting copiously from slave narratives, songs, and oral histories—sources that have often been cited before—Webber still manages to make us see slave-community life with a new and painful intimacy.

The Great Circus Street Parade in Pictures

By Barbara Klaw

by Charles Philip Pox and F. Beverly Kelley

Dover Publications, “183 Rare and Unusual Illustrations,” $5.00

“A mile of gleam, gold, glint, and glistening glamor” beset with “sonorous metals blowing martial sounds.” Such was the circus parade, “the most alluring form of advertising ever conceived by man.” Here it all is, in a modestly priced paperback. We see the telescoping tableaux, the forty-horse hitch, the Una-fon. These are marvelous pictures of a razzle-dazzle, and now vanished, American entertainment.

First Generation: Oral Histories of Twentieth-Century American Immigrants

By Barbara Klaw

by June Namias

Beacon Press, $10.95

Over 25,000,000 immigrants have entered the United States in this century—legally. No one knows the number of illegal ones.

To find out what the new immigrant experience has been like, June Namias, with a tape recorder and a nonjudgmental sympathy, has gathered the life stories of thirty-one first-generation immigrants. This is too small a sample, as she notes in her introduction, from which to generalize, but enough to suggest the complexities and pain of immigrating.

There are basic differences between these new immigrants and their predecessors. The newcomers tend to be better educated and more highly skilled. Nowadays, they usually arrive by plane, are met by friends, and are helped by sponsoring agencies. But adapting to new customs and confronting new prejudices is still an excruciating experience, even for those who eventually make it. As a young Korean said, “I thought I was really heading to heaven. But that’s wrong. You have to try to make heaven.”