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Anna Briggs Bentley's letters are an incredible source of information about everyday life on the Ohio frontier and how life changed as the frontier gave way to towns and cities. While not focused on political events of the time, Bentley was very aware of many of the issues of the day – from detailing the plans to build a new canal, to the wave of anti-slavery sentiment that swept through Ohio and her own experience at an anti-slavery rally where she heard William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass speak, and even the divisions that were taking place within the Quaker community. However, the greatest strength of the Bentley letters is there ability to detail everyday life of an anonymous frontier family, their struggles and their triumphs. Anna Bentley shares a wealth of information about the medical practices of the time, the difficulties of living in a society where cash was scarce, and the challenges facing a woman living on the frontier.
American Grit: A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier is an intimate look at everyday life on the Ohio frontier and is an incredible source of information about the work of women on the frontier which is often overlooked in accounts of western settlement. However, there are a few minor detractions in the account that provide challenges to the reader. The first is the sheer number of players in these letters, from the fifteen members of the immediate Bentley family to the numerous relatives mentioned and the neighbors that play a vital role in the family's life. It is a challenge for the reader to keep everyone straight. The difficulty is compounded by numerous people with the same name and the addition of new family members as the Bentley children marry, begin their own families and start writing their own letters back east (several of which are included in this volume). Foster has admitted the challenge of identifying all the people mentioned in the letters and does her best to help the reader through footnotes and appendixes, which include multiple family trees.
The other minor problem, especially for students of the period, is the lack of historical context for the letters. Foster does introduce each section of letters with a paragraph or two about what was happening at the time in the family, and introduces a few key historical events that are mentioned in the letters, such as divisions within the Quaker community, alternate medical beliefs, and the failed canal. However, this historical context is done primarily on the local level. It would benefit the book to expand the historical context to include the national level, perhaps in the footnotes. For example, there is mention made of the Panic of 1837, the lack of currency in circulation and that this caused problems for those on the frontier. There is no other explanation as to why this was a significant event, not only to those on the frontier but to the rest of the nation as well.
Other than these relatively minor criticisms, Emily Foster's American Grit is an incredibly engaging account of family life on the Ohio frontier that is rich in detail and should be considered for inclusion in any Ohio history course. In an effort to be remembered, Foster has made sure that the letters that Anna Briggs Bentley wrote to her family back east have been preserved and has guaranteed that Bentley and her struggles on the frontier will be known for generations to come.
The University of Akron
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