Ohio University Press

Cleansing the city; sanitary geographies in Victorian London.

Allen (English, US Naval Academy) provides insight into the contested nature of sanitary modernization through this study of Victorian London, where resistance to reform found multiple forms in expression of nostalgia for a threatened urban landscape and domestic autonomy. The book's five sections include segments analyzing the geography of the Thames in the 1860s from Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and intransigence and limited mobility in the 1880s in Gissing's The Nether World, as well as chapters on the sanitary city, the London sewer, the "Thames Fever," and the poor's disillusionment with reform in the 1880s. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Edna Boies Hopkins; strong in character, colorful in expression.

This study and catalog is of American artist Edna Boies Hopkins (1872-1937) and her color woodblock prints. It was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art from December 2007 to March 2008, the Springfield Museum of Art in Ohio from March to June 2008, and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Massachusetts from June to August 2008. It provides biographical information on Hopkins, and discussion of her sources and influences, and her working method. The second half of the book consists of a catalog of the color woodblock prints, grouped according to subject matter (landscapes, figurative scenes, and florals) and listed alphabetically in each section. Vasseur is a curator of European art at the Columbus Museum of Art. The project began while he was curator at the Springfield Museum of Art. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Paris on the Potomac; the French influence on the architecture and art of Washington, D.C.

Part of the series Perspectives on the Art and Architectural History of the United States Capitol, this title originated at a conference held by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society in 2002. The five essays presented explore French influences on the artistic and architectural environment of Washington, D.C., after the well-known contribution of Peter Charles L'Enfant, and covers the topics of the Jefferson-Latrobe collaboration, David d'Angers's busts of Washington and Lafayette in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building, Francophilia among government officers and the Washington elite, interpreting the influence of Paris on the planning of the capitol, 1870-1930, and architects and the French connection in Washington, D.C. Illustrations are mainly with black-and-white photographs. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rookwood and the American Indian; masterpieces of American art pottery from the James J. Gardner collection.

This remarkable book blends history, anthropology and art in a manner seldom seen. Ellis, an expert in Rookwood pottery at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Meyn, an ethnologist have taken a catalogue of a line of Rookwood featuring painted portraits of Indians and made it into a window into a time and place long lost. Meyn's introduction outlines the history of Native Americans in the Cincinnati area, from the first white settlers to the days of Wild West Shows. Then Ellis gives the background of Rookwood and the development of the line of Indian images in the late nineteenth century. The main part of the books consists of full-color, full-page illustrations of the pottery with information on each piece and its creator. Added to this the editors have included original photos of the people represented. When possible, a brief biography of the subject is included. The audience for this book reaches for beyond art historians and pottery collectors to anyone interested in the history of Native Americans. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Women and slavery; v.1: Africa, the Indian Ocean world, and the medieval North Atlantic.

This is the first volume of a two-part collection of articles on women and slavery. Campbell (Indian Ocean world history, McGill), Miers (history, Ohio University) and Miller (history, University of Virginia) have selected studies of women in Africa, the lands ringing the Indian Ocean and one brief detour to early medieval Norse society. The sections are arranged by the societal framework of the slavery involved, from kin-based communities, to patriarchal households to national and often religion based slavery both in Islamic and Christian African states to slavery under French and Boer colonialism. While there is some discussion of women involved in the buying and selling of slaves, most articles are about the variety of circumstances under which women existed as slaves. In a few cases the economic value of women's work is demonstrated but all too often the main function of female slaves is sexual, either as members of a harem, concubines of a chief or playthings of a foreign trader. Some of the authors discuss the position of the children of these women in the different circumstances. All of them remind the reader that the practice of conquerors killing the men and taking women and children as slaves is a universal constant in human history. The articles are emotionally painful to read but worth the effort. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Women and slavery; v.2: The modern Atlantic.

Campbell (Indian Ocean world history, McGill), Miers (history, Ohio University) and Miller (history, University of Virginia) study the history of the enslavement of women in the Americas in their second volume devoted to women and slavery. In North America, slavery was known as the "peculiar institution" and some of the essays describe how plantation slavery differed from that in other parts of the world. One difference was that in the Caribbean and in Brazil there was more opportunity for a slave to buy her own freedom. However, the determination of women not to leave their children behind gave slave owners a weapon to keep women from leaving. Other authors treat the condition of women after emancipation in the Caribbean and the southeast of the United States. Again, the drive to protect their children at all costs made the women vulnerable. However, many women managed to use their skills to create small businesses and succeed. The introduction points out that under the law in the 18th and 19th century, all women were subjugated to men and that emancipation for female slaves did not get them rights that were given, at least on paper, to their brothers. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)