front cover of Parsnips in the Snow
Parsnips in the Snow
Talks with Midwestern Gardeners
Jane Anne Staw
University of Iowa Press, 1990

 Through conversations with twelve vastly different gardeners—among them a Trappist monk, a retired mailman, and an advertising copywrite—this enchanting volume captures the spirit of midwestern garderners. Illustrated throughout it is the wholesale dedication of midwesterners to their gardens—despite drought, heat, disabilities, and other challenges. Anyone who delights in gardening, the Midwest, or human triumph will enjoy this book.


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Passage to Wonderland
Rephotographing Joseph Stimson's Views of the Cody Road to Yellowstone National Park, 1903 and 2008
Michael A. Amundson
University Press of Colorado, 2012
In 1903 the Cody Road opened, leading travelers from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. Cheyenne photographer J. E. Stimson traveled the route during its first week in existence, documenting the road for the state of Wyoming's contribution to the 1904 World's Fair. His images of now-famous landmarks like Cedar Mountain, the Shoshone River, the Holy City, Chimney Rock, Sylvan Pass, and Sylvan Lake are some of the earliest existing photographs of the route. In 2008, 105 years later, Michael Amundson traveled the same road, carefully duplicating Stimson's iconic original photographs. In Passage to Wonderland, these images are paired side by side and accompanied by a detailed explanation of the land and history depicted.

Amundson examines the physical changes along "the most scenic fifty miles in America" and explores the cultural and natural history behind them. This careful analysis of the paired images make Passage to Wonderland more than a "then and now" photography book--it is a unique exploration of the interconnectedness between the Old West and the New West. It will be a wonderful companion for those touring the Cody Road as well as those armchair tourists who can follow the road on Google Earth using the provided GPS coordinates.

 

The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University toward the publication of this book.


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Paths Along The Hudson
A Guide to Walking and Biking
Perls, Jeffrey
Rutgers University Press, 1999

Whether you are an ardent hiker or prefer to enjoy the great outdoors from your living-room armchair, Jeffrey Perls has written the essential guidebook on one of the most majestic natural areas of the eastern United States-the Hudson River.

From the rugged topography of the Hudson Highlands Gorge to the crowded towers of Manhattan, the Hudson has been an inspiration for poets, writers, artists, and countless others who have enjoyed the many wonders of the river. The area surrounding the Hudson abounds in history. It’s played a pivotal part in our country's development, from its strategic role in the American Revolution to its heritage as the nation’s primary entry point for immigrants to this country. The river also supports an incredibly rich diversity of flora and fauna, from the bald eagle to the short-nosed sturgeon.

Perls brings together the culture, history, nature, and recreational activities along the Hudson River in one convenient guide book. He not only maps out walks and bike trails, both urban and rural, but also introduces readers to the landscape, geology, history, and culture of the Hudson Valley region. Perls provides a practical and geographically comprehensive guide to exploring the area on foot and by bike. The trail routes bring readers as close to the river as possible and guides them to rewarding vistas, nature preserves, and historic landmarks. It’s a useful guide for visitors to the Hudson region and local residents as it acquaints them to the natural treasures to be found in their own backyards.

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People of the Big Voice
Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942
Tom Jones
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2011

People of the Big Voice tells the visual history of Ho-Chunk families at the turn of the twentieth century and beyond as depicted through the lens of Black River Falls, Wisconsin studio photographer, Charles Van Schaick. The family relationships between those who “sat for the photographer” are clearly visible in these images—sisters, friends, families, young couples—who appear and reappear to fill in a chronicle spanning from 1879 to 1942. Also included are candid shots of Ho-Chunk on the streets of Black River Falls, outside family dwellings, and at powwows. As author and Ho-Chunk tribal member Amy Lonetree writes, “A significant number of the images were taken just a few short years after the darkest, most devastating period for the Ho-Chunk. Invasion, diseases, warfare, forced assimilation, loss of land, and repeated forced removals from our beloved homelands left the Ho-Chunk people in a fight for their culture and their lives.”

The book includes three introductory essays (a biographical essay by Matthew Daniel Mason, a critical essay by Amy Lonetree, and a reflection by Tom Jones) and 300-plus duotone photographs and captions in gallery style. Unique to the project are the identifications in the captions, which were researched over many years with the help of tribal members and genealogists, and include both English and Ho-Chunk names.
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Perimeter
A Contemporary Portrait of Lake Michigan
Kevin J. Miyazaki
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2014
Commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University to create an artwork reflecting on the importance of freshwater, Milwaukee-based photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki embarked on a two-week, 1,800-mile drive around Lake Michigan. He traveled its perimeter, through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, to produce what he calls “a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan.” Miyazaki set up his portable studio on beaches, in parks, on boat docks, and in backyards, photographing those he met along the way. From residents, environmental scientists, and artists to a Native American water rights advocate, surfers, and commercial fishermen, Lake Michigan holds a powerful place in the life of each. Many shared their thoughts with him on why this body of water is important to all.
 
Miyazaki also photographed the water as he went, creating waterscapes of the ever-changing lake affected by weather and time. Perimeter gathers these images together, creating a diverse portrait of both people and a place, encapsulating Lake Michigan’s significance to those who are drawn to it.
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A Photographer’s Guide to Ohio
Ian Adams
Ohio University Press, 2011
In A Photographer’s Guide to Ohio Ian Adams, Ohio’s foremost landscape photographer, guides you to some of the most photogenic sites in the Buckeye State. With 3,600 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, more than 120 state parks and nature preserves, and the world’s largest Amish community, Ohio’s photographic subjects are nearly endless. In more than 150 color photographs, Adams shows you how to capture the beauty of the seasons when photographing Ohio’s scenic vistas, nature preserves, waterfalls, public gardens, historic barns and bridges, landmark buildings, and town murals. Accompanied by regional maps, each entry includes clear directions and GPS locations, related websites, and historical facts about the area, as well as Adams’s detailed suggestions for capturing the best images. Both beginners and experienced photographers will find expert guidance in Adams’s clear advice on digital landscape photography and will be inspired to create their own stunning Ohio scenic images.
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A Photographer’s Guide to Ohio, Volume 2
Volume 2
Ian Adams
Ohio University Press, 2015
Ian Adams is perhaps the best-known landscape photographer in Ohio, and in the first volume of A Photographer’s Guide to Ohio, he shared his knowledge of what to photograph in the Buckeye State and how to photograph it. Now, in this second volume, Adams expands on his previous work, adding over 120 natural features, scenic rivers and byways, zoos and public gardens, historic buildings and murals, and even winter lighting displays to the list of places to visit and photograph in Ohio. In addition to advice on photographing landscapes, he offers tips for capturing excellent images of butterflies and dragonflies. Recognizing the rapid development of new technologies, Adams includes pointers on smartphone photography, lighting and composition, digital workflow, and sharing images across a variety of platforms. The book is illustrated with more than 100 color photographs. Comprehensive and concise, these two volumes make up a travel and photography guide to almost 300 of Ohio’s most noteworthy and beautiful outdoor places.
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Photography and Italy
Maria Antonella Pelizzari
Reaktion Books, 2011

In this beautifully illustrated book Maria Antonella Pelizzari traces the history of photography in Italy from its beginnings to the present as she guides us through the history of Italy and its ancient sites and Renaissance landmarks.

Pelizzari specifically considers the role of photography in the formation of Italian national identity during times of political struggle, such as the lead up to Unification in 1860, and later in the nationalist wars of Mussolini’s regime. While many Italians and foreigners— such as Fratelli Alinari or Carlo Ponti, John Ruskin or Kit Talbot—focused their lenses on architectural masterpieces, others documented the changing times and political heroes, creating icons of figures such as Garibaldi and the brigands. Pelizzari’s exploration of Italian visual traditions also includes the photographic collages of Bruno Munari, the neorealist work of photographers such as Franco Pinna, the bold stylized compositions of Mario Giacomelli, and the controversial images created by Oliviero Toscani for Benetton advertising in the 1980s.

Featuring unpublished works and a rare selection of over one hundred images, this book will appeal to art collectors and students of art history and Italian culture.

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Picturing Indians
Photographic Encounters and Tourist Fantasies in H. H. Bennett's Wisconsin Dells
Steven D. Hoelscher
University of Wisconsin Press, 2008
Today a tourist mecca, the area now known as the Wisconsin Dells was once wilderness—and a gathering place for the region’s Native peoples, the Ho-Chunk, who for centuries migrated to this part of the Wisconsin River for both sustenance and spiritual renewal. By the late 1800s their numbers had dwindled through displacement or forcible removal, and it was this smaller band that caught the attention of photographer Henry Hamilton Bennett. Having built his reputation on his photographs of the Dells’ steep gorges and fantastic rock formations, H. H. Bennett now turned his camera upon the Ho-Chunk themselves, and thus began the many-layered relationship unfolded by Steven D. Hoelscher in Picturing Indians: Photographic Encounters and Tourist Fantasies in H. H. Bennett’s Wisconsin Dells.
            The interactions between Indian and white man, photographer and photographed, suggested a relationship in which commercial motives and friendly feelings mixed, though not necessarily in equal measure. The Ho-Chunk resourcefully sought new ways to survive in the increasingly tourist-driven economy of the Dells. Bennett, struggling to keep his photography business alive, capitalized on America’s comfortably nostalgic image of Native peoples as a vanishing race, no longer threatening and now safe for white consumption.
            Hoelscher traces these developments through letters, diaries, financial records, guidebooks, and periodicals of the day. He places Bennett within the context of contemporary artists and photographers of American Indians and examines the receptions of this legacy by the Ho-Chunk today. In the final chapter, he juxtaposes Bennett’s depictions of Native Americans with the work of present-day Ho-Chunk photographer Tom Jones, who documents the lives of his own people with a subtlety and depth foreshadowed, a century ago, in the flickers of irony, injury, humor, and pride conveyed by his Ho-Chunk ancestors as they posed before the lens of a white photographer.


Winner, Book Award of Merit, Wisconsin Historical Society, Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for Regional Interests, selected by the Public Library Association

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Picturing Utopia
Bertha Shambaugh and the Amana Photographers
Abigail Foerstner
University of Iowa Press, 2005
More than a hundred years ago, Bertha Shambaugh set out to photograph the Amana Colonies, the utopian religious community twenty miles northwest of Iowa City. Following her example, several Amana members ignored their community's prohibition against photography and took up cameras to record the people and events around them. Picturing Utopia celebrates their artistic vision and offers a rare glimpse into a 19th-century religious utopia, providing an unbroken photographic record beginning with Shambaugh's work in the 1890s and continuing through the Colonies' transition to mainstream American life with the Great Change in 1932.Abigail Foerstner, whose great uncle was one of the Amana photographers included in this book, brings together this stunning collection of photographs along with the stories of the photographers who took them. Together the pictures and text fill in an untold chapter in American photographic history and provide an insider's view of life in Amana.
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Pittsburgh Then and Now
Arthur G. Smith
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006
This handsome volume presents 161 pairs of matching before and after photographs of Pittsburgh.  A treasury of images for those who remember the old Pittsburgh, those who are curious about its past, and anyone interested in Pittsburgh's fascinating evolution from “smoky city” to the city it is today.
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Placing John Haines
James Perrin Warren
University of Alaska Press, 2017
 
John Haines arrived in Alaska, fresh out of the Navy, in 1947, and established a homestead seventy miles southeast of Fairbanks. He stayed there nearly twenty-five years, learning to live off the country: hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering berries, and growing vegetables. Those years formed him as a writer—the interior of Alaska, and especially its boreal forest—marking his poetry and prose and helping him find his unique voice.
 
Placing John Haines, the first book-length study of his work, tells the story of those years, but also of his later, itinerant life, as his success as a writer led him to hold fellowships and teach at universities across the country. James Perrin Warren draws out the contradictions inherent in that biography—that this poet so indelibly associated with place, and authentic belonging, spent decades in motion—and also sets Haines’s work in the context of contemporaries like Robert Bly, Donald Hall, and his close friend Wendell Berry. The resulting portrait shows us a poet who was regularly reinventing himself, and thereby generating creative tension that fueled his unforgettable work. A major study of a sadly neglected master, Placing John Haines puts his achievement in compelling context.


 
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Plant Communities of New Jersey
A Study in Landscape Diversity
Collins, Beryl Robichaud
Rutgers University Press, 1994

From the ridgetops of the north to the Pinelands of the south, New Jersey’s natural areas display an astonishing variety of plant life. This book--a completely revised edition of the classic Vegetation of New Jersey--enables readers to understand why the vegetation of New Jersey is what it is today and what it may become.

The book portrays New Jersey as an ecosystem--its geology, topography and soil, climate, plant-plant and plant-animal relationships, and the human impact on the environment. The authors describe in detail the twelve types of plant habitats distinguished in New Jersey and suggest places to observe good examples of them. 

The book is amply illustrated with photographs of plant communities and individual species and maps. The appendixes provide a cross reference between the common and scientific names of native plants of New Jersey, and hints for plant identification.

Scientifically accurate yet written in a lively style, Plant Communities of New Jersey belongs on the bookshelf of every New Jerseyan who cares about the environment.

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Plantlore/Dena'ina K'et'una
An Ethnobotany of the Dena'ina People of Southcentral Alaska
Priscilla N. Russell
University of Alaska Press, 2020
When Chris McCandless, immortalized in Into the Wild, headed into the Alaska wilderness, one of the books he took with him was Tanaina Plantlore, which he used to identify edible plants. While the book and subsequent movie has brought attention to the book for more than a decade, it draws on a thousand of years of knowledge. The Dena’ina (also called the Tanaina) Athabascan peoples in southcentral Alaska have made use of the varied plant life that grows in interior Alaska for generations and Tanaina Plantlore collects this extensve knowledge, giving phsycial and environmental descriptions with photographs to aid in identification.

This book is the culmination of more than a decade of ethnobotanical study and provides accounts of the traditional lore associated with these plants based on a wealth of interviews with Dena’ina people. This new edition includes new graphical content consolidating practical plant information and traditional uses.
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Playing God in the Meadow
How I Learned to Admire My Weeds
Martha Leb Molnar
University of Massachusetts Press, 2022

After decades of fantasizing and saving, of working multiple jobs and embracing frugality in the midst of Manhattan, Martha Leb Molnar and her husband had found their parcel of land. Determined to turn an overgrown and unproductive Vermont apple orchard into a thriving and beautiful landscape, they decided to restore this patch of land to a pristine meadow and build a safe haven for their family and nearby wildlife.

Once they cleared the gnarled and dying trees away, Molnar was forced to wage war on the invasive species that had sprung up around the property. Propelled by the heated debates surrounding non-native species and her own complicated family history and migration, she was driven to research the Vermont landscape, turning to scientific literature, experts in botany and environmental science, and locals who have long tended the land in search of answers. At turns funny, thoughtful, and conversational, Playing God in the Meadow follows this big city transplant as she learns to make peace with rural life and an evolving landscape that she cannot entirely control.

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The Poconos
An Illustrated Natural History Guide
Carl S. Oplinger and Robert Halma
Rutgers University Press, 2006

The Poconos, a rich plateau nestled in northeastern Pennsylvania between the Delaware River and the Moosic Mountains, encompass a variety of alluring features. The perfect reference for amateur naturalists, outdoor enthusiasts, tourists, and others who wish to explore the area, this classic guide clearly explains the unique geographic characteristics, animal habits and habitats, climate, geology, and vegetation of the area.

The authors trace the region from its beginnings millions of years ago as part of a shallow sea, through the reshaping forces of great glaciers, to today’s roadways and turnpikes. This revised and expanded edition also includes brief profiles of individuals who played significant roles in the preservation or understanding of the area’s ecology. Chapters provide a general survey of the area, including its history and places to be explored and observed, information on forest types, wildlife, and aquatic habitats, updated facts and figures on animal populations, as well as new details on invasive species.

Throughout the book, numerous boxes direct readers to observatory points for specific birds, ecosystems, vegetation types, and geological features, while maps, tables, original pen-and-ink illustrations, and a select list of field guides and other references enhance the book’s appeal. An indispensable companion for visitors as well as residents, The Poconos is a must-read for everyone who wants to discover or better understand the beauty and natural history of this unique region.

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Poems of the American Empire
The Lyric Form in the Long Twentieth Century
Jen Hedler Phillis
University of Iowa Press, 2019

Poems of the American Empire argues that careful attention to a particular strain of twentieth-century lyric poetry yields a counter-history of American global power. The period that Phillis covers—from Ezra Pound’s A Draft of XXX Cantos in 1930 to Cathy Park Hong’s Engine Empire in 2012—roughly matches what some consider the ascent and decline of the American empire. The diverse poems that appear in this book are united by their use of epic forms in the lyric poem, a combination that violates a fundamental framework of both genres’ relationship to time.

This book makes a groundbreaking intervention by insisting that lyric time is key to understanding the genre. These poems demonstrate the lyric form’s ability to represent the totality of history, making American imperial power visible in its fullness. Neither strictly an empty celebration of American exceptionalism nor a catalog of atrocities, Poems of the American Empire allows us to see both.
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The Poorhouse
Subsidized Housing in Chicago
Devereux Bowly Jr.
Southern Illinois University Press, 2012

Chicago seems an ideal environment for public housing because of the city’s relatively young age among major cities and well-deserved reputation for technology, innovation, and architecture. Yet The Poorhouse: Subsidized Housing in Chicago shows that the city’s experience on the whole has been a negative one, raising serious questions about the nature of subsidized housing and whether we should have it and, if so, in what form.

Bowly, a native of the city, provides a detailed examination of subsidized housing in the nation’s third-largest city. Now in its second edition, The Poorhouse looks at the history of public housing and subsidized  housing in Chicago from 1895 to the present day. Five new chapters that cover the decline and federal takeover of the Chicago Housing Authority, and its more recent “transformation,” which involved the  demolition of the CHA family high-rise buildings and in some cases their replacement with low-risemixed income housing on the same sites. Fifty new photos supplement this edition.

Certificate of Excellence from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2013

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Postcards from the Chihuahua Border
Revisiting a Pictorial Past, 1900s–1950s
Daniel D. Arreola
University of Arizona Press, 2019
Just a trolley ride from El Paso, Ciudad Juárez was a popular destination in the early 1900s. Enticing and exciting, tourists descended on this and other Mexican border towns to browse curio shops, dine and dance, attend bullfights, and perhaps escape Prohibition America.

In Postcards from the Chihuahua Border Daniel D. Arreola captures the exhilaration of places in time, taking us back to Mexico’s northern border towns of Cuidad Juárez, Ojinaga, and Palomas in the early twentieth century. Drawing on more than three decades of archival work, Arreola uses postcards and maps to unveil the history of these towns along west Texas’s and New Mexico’s southern borders.

Postcards offer a special kind of visual evidence. Arreola’s collection of imagery and commentary about them shows us singular places, enriching our understandings of history and the history of change in Chihuahua. No one postcard tells the entire story. But image after image offers a collected view and insight into changing perceptions. Arreola’s geography of place looks both inward and outward. We see what tourists see, while at the same time gaining insight about what postcard photographers and postcard publishers wanted to be seen and perceived about these border communities.

Postcards from the Chihuahua Border is a colorful and dynamic visual history. It invites the reader to time travel, to revisit another era—the first half of the last century—when these border towns were framed and made popular through picture postcards.
 
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Protest City
Portland's Summer of Rage
Rian Dundon
Oregon State University Press, 2023

In the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Portland made national news with nightly social justice protests, often met with violent response by counter protestors and law enforcement. Though frequently regarded as a progressive hub, Portland has a long history of racial inequality and oppression, and the city’s entrenched divisions gained new attention during the Trump years. The photographs in Protest City present a visceral visual record of this significant moment in Portland’s history.
 
Rian Dundon, who has been photographing the rise of extreme politics on the West Coast since 2016, lived only a short walk from the protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd. For one hundred days, Dundon enmeshed himself in the demonstrations with an unobtrusive point-and-shoot camera. The result is a graphic portrayal of how social movements become politicized, how spectacle serves as a subtext to change in the digital age, and how modern protests blur distinctions among performance, ritual, and surveillance. As he follows the progress of Portland’s conflicts, Dundon draws connections to Oregon’s legacy as a stronghold of white supremacist extremism and interrogates the role of whiteness in racial justice movements.
 
Dundon’s striking photos recreate the immediacy and impact of the protests, while a foreword by journalist Donnell Alexander and introduction by historian Carmen P. Thompson contextualize the uprising’s sociopolitical background. A chronology and author’s note are also featured.

The publisher and author would like to thank the Magnum Foundation, Documentary Arts, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project for their generous support of this publication. Additional funding has been provided by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

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Putting Down Roots
Gardening Insights from Wisconsin’s Early Settlers
Marcia C. Carmichael
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2011
Culture and history can be passed from one generation to the next through the food we eat, the vegetables and fruits we plant and harvest, and the fragrant flowers and herbs that enliven our gardens. The plants our ancestors grew tell stories about their way of life.
 
Wisconsin’s nineteenth-century settlers arrived in the New World in search of new opportunities and the chance to create a new life. These European immigrants and Yankee settlers brought their traditional foodways with them—their family recipes and the seeds, roots, and slips of cherished plants—to serve as comfort food, in the truest sense. 
 
This part of our collective history comes alive at Old World Wisconsin’s re-created nineteenth-century heirloom gardens. In Putting Down Roots, historical gardener Marcia C. Carmichael guides us through these gardens, sharing insights on why the owners of the original houses—be they Yankee settlers, German, Norwegian, Irish, Danish, Polish, or Finnish immigrants—planted and harvested what they did. She shares timeless lessons with today’s gardeners and cooks about planting trends and practices, garden tools used by early settlers, popular plant varieties, and favorite flavors of Wisconsin’s early settlers, including recipes for such classics as Irish soda bread, pierogi, and Norwegian rhubarb custard.
 
Putting Down Roots celebrates the diversity and rich ethnic settlement of Wisconsin. It’s also a story of holding fast to one’s traditions and adapting to new ways that nourished one’s family so they could flourish in their new surroundings.
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