Review of Belleville, Ottawa, and Galesburg by Kay J. Carr

Kay Carr's book, Belleville, Ottawa, and Galesburg: Community and Democracy on the Illinois Frontier, considers the differing political cultures of the three towns mentioned in her title. By examining the decision-making processes of each of these towns, she discovers much about the ways in which these seemingly similar communities differed. All three of the towns were approximately the same size during the middle of the nineteenth century, the time frame that the book considers. Carr calls these three towns "regional centers," towns which were mid-sized, larger than nearby villages, yet smaller than neighboring cities.

Carr compares and contrasts these three communities in order to gain a greater understanding of the ways in which communities throughout the United States came to make decisions. She states: "I contend that there is a link between frontier community building and the acceptance of particular types of democratic political processes in the United States." (p. 6) Through her study of this phenomenon, Carr is able to discern that not only did individual communities play a role in national political development, they were also keenly affected by the subsequent national politics. In the end, she is able to conclude that a fairly complicated process took place as American political decision making shifted from deferential to competitive.