Book excerpt: "Henry Peter Bosse (1844-1903) is now recognized as the leading photographer of the Mississippi River during the late nineteenth century: he extensively photographed the Upper Mississippi from 1883 to 1893, a time of unprecedented environmental and social change. His work was practically unknown until five separate volumes of his photographs were discovered within the past decade. Since then, his photographs have been exhibited at the Smithsonian and other national museums and purchased by private art collectors around the world." "Views on the Mississippi brings together for the first time almost one hundred of Bosse's most stunning images. These photographs, tracing the river from Minneapolis to St. Louis, capture the Mississippi as it was being transformed from an untamed natural wonder to a modern commercial highway. Presenting wagon and railroad bridges, towns and villages along the banks, and the steamboats that served them, Bosse's photography depicts the river at the fulcrum between the nostalgic, romantic era recorded by Mark Twain and the coming century of industrial development and environmental alterations (the navigation projects of the Army Corps are among the changes documented by Bosse). Also included is a detailed reproduction of Bosse's rare landmark map of the river, first published in 1887-88."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved