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 the wagon and railroad bridges, the towns and villages along the banks, and the steamboats that served them, Bosse's images depict the river at the fulcrum between the nostalgic era recorded by Mark Twain and the coming century of industrial development and environmental change, including the alterations wrought by the navigation projects of the Army Corps.
Bosse used the cyanotype process, which produced large-format photographs in crisp, vivid blue tones. This volume offers high quality reproduction with new captions providing the location and significance of each image, as well as historical context. Also included here is a detailed reproduction of Bosse's rare landmark map of the river, first published in 1887-88, giving the reader with a fascinating guide to the historic Upper Mississippi.
Views on the Mississippi is certain to delight and surprise those interested in nineteenth-century America, life on the Mississippi River, the environment, and fine photography everywhere.
"Views on the Mississippi transports readers back more than 100 years and puts them behind the camera of a photographer and mapmaker whose work is recognized around the world. This handsome book collects almost 100 photos taken from 1883 to 1893 of the upper Mississippi, from Minneapolis to St. Louis. The photos-of the river, its bridges, towns, bluffs, barges and boats-provide a view of the river during its early development a major commercial highway and recreation area. Many of the photos, reproduced in the blue tones of the cyanotype process Bosse used, are taken from bluffs and provide marvelous vistas of the breadth and sweep of the river-views that helped Bosse in his mapmaking efforts." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
By Mark Neuzil. 253 pages