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Reviews
A Walk toward Oregon: A Memoir
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By Alvin Josephy, Jr.
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University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2001. Photographs, index. 345 pages. $17.95 paper.
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Reviewed by Katrine Barber
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon
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In a short forward, historian Alvin Josephy describes his memoir
as a means to explain Oregon's significance in his long, colorful
life. Quoting Henry Thoreau, Josephy explains that he finds Oregon
a surrogate for what is most promising in the broader West. Also
like Thoreau, Josephy gazes on the West with eastern eyes. How does
Oregon become important to a young New Yorker whose life experiences
parallel the twentieth-century history of the United States? Not
surprisingly, the West as embodied by Oregon (and interestingly,
not California, where Josephy also spent considerable time) represents
freedom, wildness, and a place to start life over again.
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Josephy develops his memoir as an
account of his transformation from naiveté to awareness with
the first section, titled "The Cocoon." Wealth, privilege, and family
connections insulated Josephy from the underbelly of New York City
in the 1910s and 1920s, while western films, children's books, and
a stint in the Boy Scouts oriented him toward New Jersey's Palisades
and beyond. Most significant in Josephy's development was Samuel
Knopf, his maternal grandfather and the underwriter of the Alfred
A. Knopf publishing firm. From an early age, Josephy believed that
he, too, would work in publishing. The crack in this cocoon was
the figure of his father, who rejected his own ambitions to work
in the family business, a decision that haunted not only the senior
Josephy but his son as well. The cocoon was destroyed by the death
of Josephy's grandfather, the advent of the Great Depression, and
Josephy's growing interest in writing rather than publishing.
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Josephy left New York for Harvard University, where he became increasingly engaged in writing and Democratic politics. His university education was cut short as his family's financial situation became precarious, and Josephy relocated to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter. Although he found his work stifling, in Hollywood Josephy both developed a romantic sense of the American West and deepened his political work. He finally returned to the "gray and dingy" East for medical reasons (p. 106). The nation was still embroiled in the Depression, and Josephy found that his professional opportunities were limited to positions garnered through family connections. Finally, his decision to pursue a career as a journalist allowed Josephy to develop his own professional path in much the way his father had wanted to. |
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Josephy worked in both print and radio news and began a family. Service as a World War II combat correspondent connected him briefly to Navajo soldiers and stirred his interest in Indian peoples of the West. After the war, Josephy "wanted to go back West and start over again with a new life" (p. 226). He became a contributing editor to Time magazine and began to develop a career as a popularizer of western history and an advocate for Indian rights. |
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Josephy deftly weaves national and sometimes international events throughout his narrative. The drawback is that the parallels between the development of the United States and the growth of a boy into manhood seem too finely drawn, with the nation awakening from a seeming innocence as Josephy does. The narrative arc of awakening and declination seems to suggest that the United States moved from a period of innocence to a fall from grace that included the Great Depression, World War II, and the "civil wars" of the 1960s. While this may reflect Josephy's maturation, it simplifies the history of the United States in much the same way that romantic views of the American West have. |
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Josephy's memoir will undoubtedly
be of interest to those who have followed his career and enjoyed
his important books. He did a great deal single-handedly to draw
attention to western Indian history and to such contemporary threats
to American Indian rights as the termination policy of the 1950s.
Indeed, it is when he discusses the 1950s and 1960s that his memoir
holds the most historical depth, as Josephy places his work in a
context enriched by his extensive research into American Indian
topics. It is was during this period that Josephy encountered the
most significant challenges to his worldview since his college days.
He describes his conversion from a pro-development philosophy to
one of conservationism rooted in a love for the western landscape
and his transition from a spokesperson for Native rights to a supporter
of indigenous people who spoke out for themselves. At one point
Josephy writes that "in the presence of younger people I often felt
behind the times, put off, puzzled unable to understand, and sometimes
offended" (p. 285). It seems likely that the previously mentioned
transitions had a similar effect on Josephy. While a more concerted
concentration on what it was like to live through these times would
have strengthened the memoir, Josephy leaves the impression of an
impassioned citizen and lifelong student not only of this region
but also of the nation as a whole.
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