Series Americana, pt ii

Series Americana is a publication that affirmed cultural value in a favored category of my own book collecting that had developed a strong core of regional and series material, including some titles profiled in Carol Fitzgerald's descriptive bibliography, prior to knowledge of her book.

Rivers of America, on the other hand, led to collecting volumes of that series with excited interest since shortly before discovering it I had wondered if, indeed, there was a great profile of American rivers. A timely question. The magic moment happened in the once fascinating and now sadly disappeared Heights Books on Montague Street when I was lucky enough to notice The Suwanee half-hidden on a shelf. The series it evidently belonged to became a focus of investigation with surprising and gratifying connections to several other areas of interest. Rivers of America introduced me to the the author which paved the way to Series Americana; it led to learning about the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book where, in addition to both Fitzgerald projects being presented in their galleries, many other titles have been curated for exhibition (the link has a portal to their online publications); it led to learning about the literary projects of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and to numerous other subsets of these things such as authors, illustrators, the Library of Congress's Center for the Book etc.  

But returning to Series Americana, the multiple books within the various series reviewed for the project, aptly dubbed "national self portrait", examine a range of cultural facets: customs (see Folkways Series in previous post), forts, lakes, mountains, seaports, trails, to name a few. Most of the series' books don't share a common design, a curious detail since uniform cover art is generally a hallmark of a series. A few of these series feature photographic cover art that, for me,  removes them from the realm of the nuanced illustrative work that generated or promoted the iconography associated with the romantic ideals of American history seen through the mid-twentieth century lens .

It seems to me in mid-century book illustration lay the abundant subtle treatments that thousands of people could have been influenced by whether incidentally, as a minor sideshow on their home bookshelves, quietly radiating into the sub-conscious; or alternatively in the case of some kid lying on his or her bedroom floor, rapt in an imaginative journey that began with zoning into the illustration of a book jacket or end-paper. In a time less visually bombastic than ours the single image or few images of a book loomed large; they were the launching pad to mind trips as much, if not more, than the text was, or at a minimum heavily informed the text. Remember? And I suspect within these reveries unarticulated sensibilities, be they romantic, patriotic, averse, or even hostile, were forged to a degree. So if the source material - the pictures - conflate, generalize or reduce details then the imaginative journey must be affected. If a picture is your departure point for a thought or feeling about something then those thoughts and feelings must be relative to the potency of the picture. Same basic thing as "cowboy movies" representing The West. I suppose in the case of representations of the "space" age it's a little different since it was mostly conjecture of a forward point. These points are the essence of many posts here and in The Waterwall's companion site. So to be continued ...
 
The book art for the American Lakes Series, however, stands out from the others. The jacket designs cohere via monochromatic, nouveau-rustica drawings repeated on each book framing colorful portraits of the lakes. The effect is like that of a jewel set in worked metal, very pretty. Title pages are adorned with an echo of the cover motif; endpapers show map sections. The Bienes Museum digital archive showcases volumes of the notable American lakes: Champlain & George, Great Salt Lake, Okeechobee, Pontchartrain and only Michigan representing the Great Lakes though each was uniquely treated for the series.

I have three volumes from American Lakes: Huron, Superior and Erie. All are first editions in good shape although only Superior has its jacket. In re-examining them for this draft I noticed in Superior, opposite the title page, a list of the series' titles. Under "Published" are Huron, Superior and Michigan while Ontario and Erie are listed under "In Preparation." Clearly the Great Lakes appeared first in the production of American Lakes. I compared this with my copy of Huron. All the Great Lakes were published; Champlain & George, Great Salt Lake and Pontchartrain were "In Preparation." I then checked my Erie - nothing is listed as published or forthcoming. Whoever originally owned this book acquired it within its first printing and I suspect that same person owned all three as each one is evidently a first run. And since I picked them all up at the same used books store - I think it was Book Alcove in Maryland - it is probable the store acquired them in a house lot.

Lake Superior was written by Grace Lee Nute who, as the jacket flap explains, was Curator of Manuscripts in the Minnesota Historical Society and an authority on the Great Lakes. While holding that office she authored The Voyageur, The Voyageur's Highway, and Caesars of the Wilderness. Five years ago I discovered a 1945 printing of Voyageur's Highway in Fenwick Street Books in Leonardtown, MD - another favorite used books store - and the slim volume had instant gravitas as an artifact hailing from within the boundaries of the North Country, that hallowed section of the continent traversed by the coureurs du bois and integral to the history examined by Bernard DeVoto in The Course of Empire, the book that, for me, made non-fiction more incredible than fiction: a hundred years of French explorers, ostensibly in the service of the French fur trade, pressing the boundaries of terra-incognita in birch-bark canoes with their Indian wingmen, and frequently accompanied by missionaries who would save heathen souls. This at a time when the idea persisted that Asia must be over the next horizon. What to any European was virgin country unfolded before them, exotic, brilliant, immense, unending. The mental adjustments for scale as the years went by must have been humbling. The Course of Empire is nothing less than a riveting narrative of the exploration of our continent and it forever altered my perceptions of woodlands and waters since now, when in those places, consideration of the history of exploration is unavoidable.

I hope to write more regarding DeVoto's work and the subjects of the history he enlivened but for now it's time to post. Before closing, a quick nod back to the Edwin Raisz maps post: he contributed the cartographic work to The Course of Empire. The Waterwall is at last gaining traction on connecting its hither-thither preoccupations.