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Review Author(s): Curtis D. Johnson Review by: Curtis D. Johnson Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 100, No. 5 (Dec., 1995), p. 1679Published by: on behalf of the Oxford University Press American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2170088Accessed: 17-10-2015 23:35 UTC

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United States 1679

advice. An array of contraceptive devices including abortion-inducing pills, condoms, pessaries (uterine devices similar to the diaphragm), vaginal sponges, and syringes for douching all could be procured from druggists or mail-order companies.

Brodie attempts to analyze the efficacy of the available contraceptive techniques and tools. Al- though she admits that many nineteenth-century doc- tors advocating the rhythm method were mistaken about when the actual "safe" period occurred for women, she concludes that douching and vaginal sponges were helpful in contraception. Thus, by mid-century American couples had some information and devices to help in controlling the number of children, even though contraception remained con- troversial. This situation radically worsened in the 1870s as physicians successfully fought to criminalize abortion and the Comstock law made disseminating contraceptive information or devices across state lines a federal offense.

Interesting and important as this information about contraceptive information and its dissemina- tion is, Brodie recognizes its limitations in answering the question of how nineteenth-century Americans managed to lower fertility. Still, she has broken important new ground and given provocative, con- vincing depictions of contraceptive techniques and knowledge.

JANE TURNER CENSER

George Mason University

PAUL E. JOHNSON and SEAN WILENTZ. The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press. 1994. Pp. xi, 222. $25.00.

Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz have written a fascinating account of Robert Matthews, a religious eccentric whose flamboyant career captured New York City's attention in the mid-1830s. This superb book can been read as a religious melodrama that is part farce, part tragedy, and always entertaining. From the prologue, where Matthews encounters Jo- seph Smith, to the conclusion, where one of the central characters assumes the name by which histo- rians know her, Johnson and Wilentz successfully anchor their narrative in the religious and economic history of the early nineteenth century.

The story revolves around the interaction of two would-be prophets. The first, Elijah Pierson, was a Manhattan merchant who had experienced a heavy dose of evangelical perfectionism and had rejected traditional religious authority. Unable to raise his wife from the dead, Pierson (who renamed himself Elijah the Tishbite) was vulnerable to a visionary with even greater self-proclaimed powers.

Robert Matthews, a frustrated carpenter, was the second prophet. Matthews was enraged over his de- clining fortunes, the success of bourgeois evangeli- cals, and the demise of the patriarchal family. Re-

jected by the evangelical churches, Matthews found a new direction for his religious enthusiasm. He pro- claimed himself the Prophet Matthias, defender of patriarchy, and incarnation of the male spirit of God the Father. Soon after the two prophets met, Mat- thews absorbed Pierson and a number of his acquain- tances into a small religious community. The King- dom of Matthias was notable for its pre-commercial habits and customs, bizarre doctrines, sexual eccen- tricities, and obedience to the whims of its authori- tarian patriarch. The kingdom lurched from crisis to crisis until the sudden death of Pierson led to Mat- thews's indictment for murder.

This is a fascinating tale, artfully told. But what is its significance? The Matthias case is, as Johnson and Wilentz claim, "an eccentric but dead-serious com- mentary on the contests over family life, sexuality, and social class that accompanied the rise of the market society" (p. 11). Matthews's frustrations were shared by many artisans who rejected the nexus of entrepre- neurialism, evangelicalism, and the middle-class fam- ily. What was not typical is the bizarre cult Matthias concocted to challenge the new order. By contrast, most workingmen responded to the emerging com- mercial order by joining populist denominations, free-thought societies, fraternal lodges, and/or an aggressive political party.

What can be learned from a study of such an unusual character? First, this narrative reminds us that the Second Great Awakening was more than a series of evangelical religious revivals. It was, as Wil- liam McLoughlin wrote in Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform (1978), a paradigm shift in which people sought new ways to order their lives. Matthews was no evangelical, but he certainly was a participant in the Awakening. Second, this book broadens our under- standing of American religious history. Not all reli- gious mutations survive-Matthews was a spectacular failure since his innovations challenged conventional morality as well as the new middle-class family-but unsuccessful experiments are also part of our reli- gious past. Third, the epilogue offers a somber warn- ing as it connects Matthews to similar leaders (Jim Jones and David Koresh) in the late twentieth cen- tury. Religion does not always ennoble and enlighten; American cults have a long history of twisting, distort- ing, and even extinguishing lives that fall under a prophet's spell.

CURTIS D. JOHNSON

Mount Saint Mary's College

CHARLES B. DEW. Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge. New York: W. W. Norton. 1994. Pp. xviii, 429. $27.50.

Charles B. Dew's book is packed with splendid in- sights. Yet, in a mark of mature scholarship, these insights and their historiographical implications are not suffered to distract from the tale itself. This is fortunate, for Dew's story of ironmaker William

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW DECEMBER 1995

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