By Randy McNutt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

After 200 years, Ohio needs a good, concise history.

And Andrew R.L. Clayton has written it: Ohio: The History of a People ($34.95).

The Ohio State University Press commissioned Mr. Clayton, a history professor at Miami University in Oxford, to write the book for Ohio's Bicentennial in 2003.

He provides a compelling, well-written narrative that mingles voices by using letters, diaries, novels, paintings, newspaper accounts and memoirs. He shows that Ohio is a fascinating state.

"Despite Ohio's reputation in contemporary American popular culture as a bland, uninteresting place, its citizens have thought a good deal about what it has been and what it might be," he wrote. "Indeed, a significant part of public culture has been about asserting and defending differing interpretations of the state's past and its future."

Mr. Clayton wrote the 472-page book with an eye toward telling the stories of individuals and communities. For example, he wrote that Ohioans, like all Americans, consumed "vast amounts" of alcoholic beverages in the early 19th century.

"The Queen City had 223 saloons and taverns in 1834; together, they paid $9,682 in annual license fees, amounting to some 18 percent of the city's revenue," he said.

Cincinnati was a rough-and-tumble place.

"Some travelers found the city repulsive," Mr. Clayton wrote. "The most caustic was the Englishwoman Frances Trollope, who in Domestic Manners of the Americans dealt with her failure to establish herself in Cincinnati society by maliciously lampooning the citizens as ignorant, greedy provincials.

"Dirty and smelly, Cincinnati seemed to Trollope a place in which people were always in a hurry, eager to make money, and blithely unaware of the ridiculousness of their efforts to behave in a genteel way. Even the city boosters agreed that the pursuit of wealth was the chief occupation of Cincinnatians."

In those days, the city was a boiling cauldron of races, religions and nationalities.

"So rapidly has our city enlarged itself, and such is the migratory character of our citizens, that we are almost strangers to one another," wrote a reporter for the Cincinnati Journal in 1834.

The book is available at area bookstores or from The Ohio State University Press, 1-614-292-6930.

In Warren County, 13 children contributed drawings that will be featured in the 2003 Deerfield Township Calendar. It will be mailed to 9,000 households.

Students from the Kings and Mason school districts and St. Susanna School participated in the drawing contest. Its theme: "Deerfield Township Bicentennial, 1803-2003."

Township trustees recently recognized the contest winners: Mason winners: Anastasiya Kachva, grade 5; Claire Hodges, grade 5; Sri Rajamouli, grade 5; Jessica Haines, grade 5; Raymond Tan, grade 6. Kings: Chad Troyan, grade 5. St. Susanna: Laura Bramble, Taylor Daniel, Kevin Brinkman, Cayla Quallen, Jessica Levy and Mary Reeder, all grade 4.

Bicentennial Notebook runs periodically. Send news of your bicentennial event to Randy McNutt, The Enquirer, 7700 Service Center Drive, West Chester, OH 45069.