| Review | The History Teacher, 38.2 | The History Cooperative

Review

Mordecai: An Early American Family, by Emily Bingham. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. 346 pages. $26.00, paper.

This account of three generations of the Mordecai family, which extends from the American Revolution through the Civil War, weaves the story of an early American Jewish family into that of the new nation. In these early years, American Jews faced the same dilemmas that have become perennial themes in American Jewish history. The Mordecais grappled with assimilating into the larger American community, intermarriage, or even converting to Christianity, versus maintaining a religious and ethnic group identity. Although the two to three thousand Jews in early American society tended to concentrate in the coastal cities, some ventured south and west in search of fortune. The young Jacob Mordecai and his wife Judith finally settled in Warrenton, North Carolina. Economic depressions, which were common in the post-revolutionary years, frustrated Jacob's attempts to support his large family as a merchant. Eventually, the family established a school for girls that Rachel, the eldest daughter, ran. The numerous Mordecai children, Rachel in particular, sought respect and acceptance in the middle class. Rachel, who read widely in Enlightenment literature, followed her mother's example in bonding the family together in a cultivated intellectual sense, a covenant of "enlightened domesticity."

Although anti-Semitism existed, Jews in these outlying areas benefitted from the market revolution and the tremendous economic growth that produced an economy that was the fourth largest in the world by the mid-nineteenth century. Jacob remained unsuccessful, but the Mordecai offspring took advantages of these opportunities, becoming respected businessmen and professionals. One son even graduated from West Point.

Many southern Jews quietly grappled with the slavery issue. The Mordecais, however, in their striving for acceptance into the middle-class, owned slaves, and do not appear to have anguished over this issue. When Alfred, the West Point graduate, remained faithful to the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War, the family futilely reminded him of his southern roots. Another son and a daughter had already gone North to join the mid-nineteenth century social reform movements.

For the Mordecais, as for all American Jews, the United States offered almost unprecedented freedom and choices. Unlike most European Jews, American Jews did not live separate lives. But for the Jewish way of life, this independence had consequences. In cities, such as New York, synagogue congregations had some control over the degree to which their members adhered to Jewish laws and customs. But in small towns, with few Jews, practicing Judaism became haphazard. Although Jacob led his small synagogue and struggled to maintain his faith, the keeping of Shabbat, for example, gave way to more practical demands. At the same time that the practice of Judaism was attenuated as Jews scattered across the country, another religious revival or Great Awakening began, with Protestant missionaries intent on converting Jews. Some Jewish women who wanted acceptance in their communities, including three of Jacob's daughters, among them Rachel, yielded to the evangelical appeals of their neighbors. One daughter even attempted to convert her siblings. With succeeding generations, most of the Mordecais intermarried. The Mordecai women emulated other middle class women in a period that glorified a "cult of domesticity" which detached women from the public world and gave them a role as keepers of morality in society. Rachel, however, yearned for an intellectual life. For a while, she was able to achieve this. But when she married a widower with seven children and then bore four more children, this dream of an "enlightened domesticity" clashed with the time and labor demanded of motherhood. Like Judith and so many women before her, Rachel died of the complications of childbirth.

While Emily Bingham's chronicle of three generations does not include an in-depth examination of American history from the 1780s through the 1860s, it is nevertheless a splendid example of family history that captures the essence of the early American experience. Because they were prolific writers who preserved their thousands of letters, the Mordecais illustrate through their correspondence the tensions that developed as the family adapted to changing circumstances and split over the Civil War. In a larger sense, these letters represent the dilemmas American Jews faced, as well as illustrating how middle class Americans adapted to the expanding economy and the sectional tensions that led to war. In addition to its value for American Jewish history courses, the book would be useful in upper-division courses in the early national period, as well as in women's history courses. However, students in lower-division survey courses dealing with this period might have difficulty following the historical background.


California State University, Long Beach	Arlene Lazarowitz

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.