Known for being a pragmatic problem solver and for putting Ohio’s interests ahead of regionalism and politics, Riffe counted among his major accomplishments his making the General Assembly a coequal of the executive branch, believing Ohioans expected the General Assembly to be an equal partner with the governor in controlling the state. He also played an important role in the rise of black Democratic legislators in the Statehouse, due to a strong partnership with Rep. C. J. McLin, a Democrat from Dayton. He fought hard to develop his native, impoverished southeast Ohio, which led to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, the uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, and Shawnee State University.

Herbert Woodward Martin and the African American Tradition in Poetry chronicles the writing and performing career of Herbert W. Martin, focusing on the way his life has informed his art and situating his creative work within the context of the African American tradition. Author Ronald Primeau examines Martin’s place in American literature with particular emphasis on his multidisciplinary talents and his contributions to the arts through his highly regarded performances of poetry (especially that of Paul Laurence Dunbar) and his acting, playwriting, and composing.

Winfield Scott (1786-1866) was arguably the premier soldier of his era. More than any other, he was responsible for the professionalization of the U.S. Army during his long career (1807-61). He served as general in the War of 1812, commander of the U.S. forces it the final campaign of the war with Mexico, and general in chief at the beginning of the Civil War. Scott was known for his boldness and courage during the War of 1812 and wisdom and caution in his direction of the Mexico campaign. Winfield Scott and the Profession of Arms is a balanced and thorough biography of this long-neglected military figure. Scholars and military historians will welcome its significant contributions to the literature.

The third volume of The Salmon P. Chase Papers documents Chase’s career from early 1868—the beginning of his second terms as the governor of Ohio—through the pivotal election of 1860 and the first two years of his service as secretary of the Treasury in Abraham Lincoln’s wartime cabinet. Now for the first time there is ready access to a crucial record of the nation’s descent into civil war. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission provides financial support for the publication of The Salmon P. Chase Papers.

A Passion for the Land begins with a fast-moving narrative of Seiberling’s early life and a vivid description of the physical environment that stimulated his lifelong interests in nature and wilderness. Author Daniel Nelson provides a detailed examination of the congressman’s role as a dedicated environmentalist, covering Seiberling’s efforts to pass path-breaking legislation during the 1970s and the equally important period of defensive activity during the 1980s.

Fernando Wood was one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century America. His fellow New Yorkers either respected or despised him, depending whether they considered his policies beneficial or harmful to their interests. The character revealed herein possessed some admirable qualities; high intelligence, sharp analytic skills, great capacity for hard work, and a clear talent to set his ex3ecutive agenda. But equally evident are Wood’s less admirable qualities; ruthless business practices, shoddy personal ethics, corrupt politics, dictatorial tendencies. What emerges is the story of a very complex person: a successful businessman, consummate politician, resourceful three-time may of New York City, and nine-term congressman, beneath which lurked mean and self-destructive tendencies.

Morrison writes with clarity, wit, and insight, sharing his critiques of the army, West Point, and teaching, along with his assessment of the present status of American life and his attitudes toward the quality and effectiveness of army officer education and training. He analyzes some of the pitfalls and the strengths of preparing U.S. military organizations for service now and in the future, and he furnishes the reader with insights into how history is taught at a typical American college. From Rat Pants to Eagles and Tweeds is a significant contribution to the study of American military history and will be of interest to military officers, military educators and historians, and alumni of the Virginia Military Institute and West Point.

Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) studied painting in Paris from the fall of 1877 to the fall of 1882. These edited letters, written to his parents in Ohio, describe Cox’s daily routine and explicate French art teaching both in the academic setting of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and in private ateliers, such as those of Emile Carolus-Duran and Rodolphe Julian. The letters are important for insight into this system and into Paris art student life in general. Cox was an academic, committed to learning traditional drawing and composition before establishing his own artistic identity. Most of the students who crowded the ateliers and academics of Paris shared this view, and Cox’s experiences and opinions, often pungently expressed, were thus more typical of this great majority than were those of experimenters such as the impressionists, who were gaining notice while Cox was in Paris. He commented frequently on current fads, fancies, and serious developments in the art world during this transitional period.

McKinley was a popular president. Pushed reluctantly into the Spanish-American War, McKinley was instrumental in starting America on the path to becoming a global power. He was reelected by a landslide in 1901, after delivering a speech at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, he was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, McKinley’s vice president, Theodore Roosevelt became the nation’s 26th president. H. Wayne Morgan’s extensively revised and expanded edition of McKinley and His America will prove to be a welcome resource to historians and scholars.

An Artist of the American Renaissance is a collection of Cox’s private correspondence from his years in New York City and the companion work to editor H. Wayne Morgan’s An American Art Student in Paris: The Letters of Kenyon Cox, 1877-1882 (Kent State University Press, 1986). These frank, engaging, and sometimes naïve and whimsical letters show Cox’s personal development as his career progressed. They offer valuable comments on the inner workings of the American art scene and describe how the artists around Cox lived and earned incomes. Travel, courtship of the student who became his wife, teaching, politics of art associations, the process of painting murals, the controversy surrounding the depiction of the nude, promotion of the new American art of his day, and his support of a modified classical ideal against the modernism that triumphed after the 1913 Armory Show are among the subjects he touched upon.