Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper, written by Paul E. Johnson is a novel about the story and legacy of Sam Patch. Dr Johnson is a professor of history for the University of South Carolina but has taught at prestigious universities such as Princeton and Yale. He is the author of five books all based around the 1800’s era of American society. As a credible source, he pushes his research very far to provide an extensive and illuminating overview on the life of Sam Patch’s family, parents since 1751. Johnson even included a 50 page bibliography citing all of his sources at the end of the book. This amount of extensive research proves useful to telling the story accurately. The book is divided into five sections. The first being all the background information needed to fully understand Sam Patch, the next three sections are towns with waterfalls that each had a main significance to Sam’s rise to fame, and the final section to describe Sam’s legacy and impact on American society.
The first section of the book capitalizes on the Patch family’s movement into a place to settle ultimately leading up to settling in Pawtucket and setting up the poor circumstances in which they were born into. Sam’s father left at a very early age and left the family in poverty and very little reputation. Dr Johnson masterfully researches and describes the family history by interpreting tax records to notes from priests and divorce papers from the court. (21) Johnson is able to take little information from a short amount of time and is able to make a flowing storyline that gradually processes into Sam Patch’s jumping days and fills you in with all the background information you need to know. (16) What separates most historical narratives from this novel is that Johnson provides a full spectrum of what life was like for the Patch’s allowing more reliability and connection to them.
The next three sections of the book focus on what Sam Patch’s life was like during his rise to fame by jumping from waterfalls. The accounts draw from newspaper articles, pictures, advertisements and accounts while it brilliantly depicts Sam’s new lifestyle. However, this section was not as important as the sections about his uprising and his legacy. (161) Throughout the chapter, it constantly talks about his roots and how they influenced how he became.
The final section of the book describes the legacy left behind by Sam Patch which became a large impact to society. Economic status was not set in stone and could be changed with circumstance for example by Sam Patch’s rise to fame. Seeing a working class man become a hero was inspiring and became a dream to many people for generations to come. (184) Even after Sam Patch’s death at the waterfall, there were rumors that he was still alive and other theories that he faked his death. (161) Although physically he may have died, he lives on through the amazement of others and inspiration he gave to people and show that even poor people could be someone.
By writing this book Johnson took a seemingly unimportant topic and made it seem like such a pivotable point for the American dream. Dr Johnson accomplished this task by meticulously incorporating research into a narrative to clearly demonstrate that Patch left a profound mark on history by being inspiration for famous show people, being the name of a president’s horse and even a cuss word! The most successful aspect of the book was the seamless integration of information and being able to integrate it into an interesting story and making an obscure topic seem so important. The reader can be expected to have obtained a considerable amount of knowledge about Sam Patch by the end. This is a valuable contribution to the history in general because he is able to take information from a variety of documents like tax records and be able to tell a story about what the effects were and what happened. I would recommend this book not only to people interested in history, but to people interested in rhetoric so that they can see an effective use developing an idea.
Overall Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper was a curiously interesting novel that seamlessly wove together much research to provide a clear spectrum of understanding to be able to see what life was like for a poor boy and his slow rise to fame and legacy left behind.
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