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Joan Severa

"During the nineteenth century - a time of great technical and cultural change - fashion was a cultivating force in the development of American society and was influenced by one's social status, geographic location, and economic standing. 'My Likeness Taken' is a collection of daguerreotype portraits of men, women, and children taken between 1840 and 1860. Selected from the top collections in the United States, each image is analyzed to clarify datable clothing and fashion components. With subjects from among the best-dressed members of society, these portraits - reproduced in full color - reflect the latest fashion developments, trends, and influences. For students of photographic and costume history, this is extraordinary material. Many of these images have never before been published, and Severa's keen analysis adds immeasurably to our understanding of the importance of dress in American society. Photo archivists and colectors, costume curators, social historians, material culturalists, and theater designers will also find My Likeness Taken to be an invaluable resource."--Jacket.

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John Carter

"For millions of Americans, Solomon D. Butcher’s photographs epitomize the sod-house frontier. His images from western Nebraska constitute the most extensive photographic record of the generation that settled the Great Plains. Their faces are imprinted on our minds: jaunty bachelors and earnest husbands (Civil War veterans of both armies), spinster sodbusters, determined mothers, cowhands, farmhands, and former slaves––all in search of land of their own. This first book devoted to Butcher and his photos presents a unique visual chronicle of that epoch, firmly establishing Butcher's place in frontier photography.In a substantial introduction, John E. Carter traces the variegated career of this Virginia-born photographer who was himself an immigrant to the Nebraska plains. Combining critical analysis with biography, Carter situates Butcher in western history as well as in the history of photography and assesses his achievements in both. Exploring the nature of Butcher’s works and their scope, content, and significance, Carter offers a perspective for evaluating the historical evidence found in his work and new insights into the evolution of Butcher’s style and subject matter."--Book jacket.

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photographs by Marilyn Bridges

This Land is Your Land offers a unique perspective on the American landscape, making the familiar fantastic, as well as an aesthetic experience of dizzying proportions. Bridges takes us on an inspiring journey as we look down together on the fleeting moments and lasting signatures of the United States that are etched on our continent. An aerial photographer who has explored ancient cultures around the world for more than a decade, Marilyn Bridges has now focused her attention on a subject no less intriguing: the grandeur of America. In the book's Essay by acclaimed writer William Least Heat-Moon, and the Afterword by Bridges, we are given insight into the photographer's working process and the inspiration behind her images.

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William A. Ewing

"The Century of the Body presents chronologically one hundred works that illustrate all the significant genres of body-centred photography, in both art and science. Dance, sport, fashion, glamour, anatomy, medicine, criminology, political propaganda, erotic imagery, Body Art, and all the varied currents of what is called 'art photography' are featured, each represented by the most innovative photographers of their day. The greats of scientific and technological imagemaking, notably Lennart Nilsson and Ralph T. Hutchings, are included. So, too, are the leading art photographers of the century, among them Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, Brassai, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Bill Brandt, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Richard Avedon and Joel-Peter Witkin. Well known Body Artists, such as Claude Cahun, Carolee Schneemann and Chris Burden, who used the camera to record the performances, are also acknowledged." "The Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne, one of the world's foremost photography museums, has selected these landmark images to celebrate some of modern photography's finest achievements. An introduction by William A. Ewing, and full commentaries on every photograph, survey the entire range of twentieth-century imagery, focusing on the radical shifts in attitudes to the body that have taken place since 1900. The images, magnificently reproduced in duotone and colour, stand as a lasting memorial to the finest photographic artists and scientists of the past one hundred years."--Jacket.