Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy by Phillip G. Payne (review)

84 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY into the League of Nations, but on November 25, 1920, she died of a stroke at the age of forty-eight. As a southern woman, Breckinridge shared many of the characteristics of other women leaders of the day, not the least of which was the high price she paid in her personal life to be a social activist. Yet her independent wealth, family support, organizational talent, circle of wealthy friends, membership in a national network of reformers, and ready access to a state newspaper also set her apart from less privileged women and does raise the question of how much success she would have enjoyed in her endeavors without these advantages. For example, in commenting on her leadership methods, Hay suggests that Breckinridge was not a woman without fault. She could be dictatorial in her dealings with others, and at her death several of the organizations she led found they could not function without her, a failure on her part, perhaps, to cultivate the next generation of leaders. Had Hay provided a broader analysis of Breckinridge’s leadership methods and focused less on reconstructing a chronological account of her almost frantic activities over the years, her work would have made a greater contribution to understanding what made a successful progressive reformer. Yet this is a valuable study that should appeal to historians, biographers, and social activists not only for what it reveals about the life of this gifted woman, but also for what it adds to the growing understanding of reform efforts in the South in the early decades of the twentieth century. Breckinridge operated on local and national levels, and her work shows clearly that southerners actively participated in progressive reform, especially as they struggled to create a New South. Janice M. Leone Middle Tennessee State University