reviews

This section contains concise reviews of recent books, online exhibits, and articles that provide new perspectives about visual culture in the past or insights about approaches to using archival images in the classroom. Reviews will be posted on a bimonthly basis. If you have resources to recommend for review, please contact us.

A New World: England's First View of America
Richard Miller, The Beacon School

Richard Miller reviews a valuable resource for teaching visual literacy and engaging students in close analysis of early images of Native Americans.

Retouching History
Elizabeth Young, Mount Holyoke College

The vast and ever-increasing quantities of material available on the American Civil War – academic and popular, on-line and off-line, verbal and visual – can be daunting, for scholars and students alike. The Retouching History website provides a focused and fascinating case study in how the Civil War is understood – and misunderstood – today.

W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for African American Identity and Memory
Michael Benjamin, Ph.D, Independent Scholar

Michael Benjamin reviews this study by art historian Amy Helene Kirschke of images published in the NAACP journal the Crisis and the role such images played in developing the civil rights ideology from 1910 to 1934.

Ashcan Art in New York City
Robert W. Snyder, Rutgers University-Newark

Historian Robert Snyder reviews two exhibits of ashcan artists and their portrayal of early twentieth century urban life.

The Object of History
Catherine Whalen, Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture

In this review of The Object of History a cooperative project between National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Catherine Whalen evaluates the website's success in helping students understand material culture objects as types of historical evidence.