| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

River of Enterprise: The Commercial Origins of Regional Identity in the Ohio Valley, 1790–1850. By Kim M. Gruenwald. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. xvi, 214 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-253-34132-9.)

In this fine study, Kim M. Gruenwald argues that during the early national period merchants from such places as Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marietta played a defining role in making the Ohio River a potent symbol of regional unity. Rechristening the Ohio Valley "the Western Country" (p. 42), Gruenwald contends that we should not see the river of the early nineteenth century as a "boundary" dividing North from South. She also believes that we have tied the early western narrative too closely to the frontier process, the experience of farmers and squatters, and the tale of East versus West. In place of those predominant models for understanding the Ohio Country during a critical period of time, she has produced a well-informed, highly readable, and intriguing story of commerce and its role in shaping the cultural contours of a region.

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