The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 345

Book Reviews

Frenchman as to the degeneracy and impotence of the Indian
was false. He even challenged the orations of Demosthenes and
Cicero with those of certain Indian chiefs.
The scope of his interest in invention of all kinds of gadgets
and mechanical devices extended all the way from plows, harrows,
threshing machines, weathercocks, chairs, writing instruments,
to musical instruments. In his travels in Europe he made notes,
drawings, and diagrams of everything he saw that he thought
would prove useful to his countrymen. He was interested in
bridges, dry docks, torpedoes, and steamboats. He was really
excited over Robert Fulton's steamboat. Jefferson's interest in
technological progress and his fellow countrymen caused him to
devise a set of patent laws to prevent this information from being
monopolized. He felt that such information belonged to the
masses and that the grant of a patent was a tremendously impor-
tant matter. He never patented any of his inventions. They were
free for anyone to copy.
It is unnecessary to enumerate the dozens of devices, gadgets,
and instruments of almost every kind that Jefferson made, im-
proved, and owned. The reader of this illuminating study will
be dumfounded at the scope of his activities in the field of
science. It is only fair to say that the author has made a tre-
mendous contribution to the establishment of the cosmopolitan
Jefferson and has added a significant item to Jeffersonian
literature.
C. PERRY PATTERSON
The University of Texas
Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. By C. Vann Woodward.
Volume IX of A History of the South, edited by Wendell H.
Stephenson and E. Merton Coulter. Baton Rouge (Louisiana
State University Press and the Littlefield Fund for Southern
History of the Unversity of Texas), 1951. Pp. xv + 542.
Illustrations. $6.50.
Professor Woodward's Origins of the New South, 1877-z913,
the fifth study issued to date in the monumental History of the
South, examines "the foundations of the New Order of the
present South that was constructed on the several orders of the
past." In the effort to fulfill his purpose the author has consulted

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