Art, Photograh, Pictorials
Galleries of Friendship and Fame is the first comprehensive investigation of the origin, development, and practices of 19th-century American photograph albums. In this fascinating book, the author argues that the album--whether functioning as family record, parlor entertainment, social register, national portrait gallery, or advertisement for photography itself--helped transform the nature of self-presentation at the cusp of modernity.
This handsome volume examines carte de visite and cabinet card albums from their introduction in the United States in 1861 through the rise of the snapshot at the century's end. By examining a wealth of previously overlooked primary materials, this study offers a completely new understanding of photograph albums, revealing how they emerged, how they were marketed and sold, and how families displayed and told stories through them. Galleries of Friendship and Fame addresses the history of technology and innovation, the interconnectedness of the commercial and domestic spheres, and the ways photography helped shape notions of identity, family, and nation in a rapidly changing America.
203 pages, hardback
With contemporary photography and words, this handsome and groundbreaking book explores the cultural and natural history of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and the surrounding landscape within Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. More than just a collection of photographs, the book chronicles the history of the area. Best known for John Brown's 1859 raid, the Ferry occupied a strategic location between the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, making it an important 19th-century crossroads for river, canal, and railroad transportation. The book explores that bustling bygone era, including the Civil War years, which brought an end to the town's industrial age. Moreover, the book portrays the present-day town and the area's scenic attractions, including the rivers and the Appalachian Trail, which passes through the park.
George Alexander Grant is an unknown elder in the field of American landscape photography. Just as they did the work of his contemporaries Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, and others, millions of people viewed Grant's photographs; unlike those contemporaries, few even knew Grant's name. Landscapes for the People shares his story through his remarkable images and a compelling biography profiling patience, perseverance, dedication, and an unsurpassed love of the natural and historic places that Americans chose to preserve.
A Pennsylvania native, Grant was introduced to the parks during the summer of 1922 and resolved to make parks work and photography his life. Seven years later, he received his dream job and spent the next quarter century visiting the four corners of the country to produce images in more than one hundred national parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, and other locations. He was there to visually document the dramatic expansion of the National Park Service during the New Deal, including the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Grant's images are the work of a master craftsman. His practiced eye for composition and exposure and his patience to capture subjects in their finest light are comparable to those of his more widely known contemporaries. Nearly fifty years after his death, and in concert with the 2016 centennial of the National Park Service, it is fitting that George Grant's photography be introduced to a new generation of Americans.
On July 4, 1863, two defeats assured the demise of the Confederate cause. From the ridges and meadows of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia retreated. After a forty-seven-day siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, shattered Confederate forces surrendered to the Union Army and General Ulysses S. Grant.
These two books of photographs by award-winning photojournalist Timothy T. Isbell commemorate the sacrifices made and the landscapes that were witness to violence and valor.
In Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone, the battlefield's mighty panoramas are brought to life. Accompanying the eighty-five full-color photographs are stories of the soldiers who fought and citizens who witnessed this pivotal battle. These stories serve to bring special meaning to the photographs of statues, monuments, and terrain.
Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone features new monuments added to the park in the last five years, including the Elizabeth Thorn monument and the 11th Mississippi monument, which has the distinction of being the final monument allowed on the Gettysburg battlefield. With its photographs and chronicle of events, Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone offers the perfect keepsake for park visitors and anyone wanting a photographic record of Gettysburg's scenery.
Vicksburg: Sentinels of Stone reveals the breadth and scope of Grant's siege and the city's stalwart defense in eighty-five color photographs of the monuments, the bluffs, the Mississippi river, the redoubts, and the redans that remain in the national park.
Accompanying text explores the stories of the soldiers and citizens who participated in this devastating engagement. In words and images, Vicksburg: Sentinels of Stone creates an ideal memento and a superb photographic record of the monuments and scenery that make a visit to Vicksburg National Military Park an unforgettable encounter with Civil War history.
