Society for History Education

Photography Books Index II: A Subject Guide to Photo Anthologies by Martha MossReview by: Robert M. LevineThe History Teacher, Vol. 20, No. 3 (May, 1987), pp. 437-438Published by: Society for History EducationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/493135 .

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Textbooks and Readers 437

will be clear on the great and many differences between the two political philosophies and movements.

Other less weighty shortcomings of the text include a dearth of charts and maps. Especially helpful would be a map of the world, given the book's emphasis on foreign policy and some students' woeful lack of geographical knowledge. There are occasional lapses in the explanatory structure of events. For example, while the authors provide a complete account of the specific programs of the New Deal, they do not address the issues they raise in their analysis of the failings of Hoover's policies. Likewise, it is left unclear as to why students and others on the Left began to protest American involvement in the war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s.

Taken on an individual basis, the text's weaknesses as outlined above do not seem critical. It is only when considered altogether and within the context of what a survey text should explore that the shortcomings seem to undermine the work's strengths. For students to gain a solid grounding in twentieth-century history all facets of American life must be fully examined, explained, and their interrelationships revealed. The authors succeed in meeting that goal in terms of foreign and economic policies and on a limited basis in each chapter within the framework of a special section devoted to specific cultural develop- ments, such as the jazz of Bessie Smith and computer technology. Hopefully, in future editions the authors will turn their considerable explanatory skills towards fuller descrip- tions of social, religious, labor, and other events and movements that have taken place within this century and their relationship to the forces they have already examined more effectually.

The American Century is a textbook to be valued for the superior job it does explaining the roles of foreign and economic policies in twentieth-century American history. It does, however, have weaknesses in balance and mechanics.

University of Pennsylvania Denise S. Spooner

Photography Books Index II: A Subject Guide to Photo Anthologies, by Martha Moss. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1985. 261 pages. $19.95, cloth.

This reference work illustrates the wide gap between some librarians and historians who would use library collections as a starting point for their research. Photography Books Index II's introductory sections provide nary a clue about Indexl. Only the press advertising blurb, included with my review copy, mentions that the author published Index I in 1980. Not even the press blurb tells us whether Index II brings its predecessor up to date. We are left to guess or to consult Index I.

The sparse two-thirds-page preface states that photographic anthologies "not classified by the Library of Congress as photography books ... [including] books on social history, were eliminated." So much for history. What is indexed are merely nineteen anthologies as well as ten of the Time-Life volumes on photographic technique. How the author can justify including The Studio, Photographing Children, and Caringfor Photographs while omitting so many other anthologies boggles the imagination.

What use will the historian find for this volume? The photographer index is marginally useful, containing entries of photographs by many famous photographers although the list is far from being complete or even representative. The subject index is utterly hopeless. There is one entry under "agricultural laborers," three under "airplanes," one for "airships," one for "albatross," two for"algae," three for"Algerians." Or, under "W": "wheelbarrows" (1), "whimbrels" (1), "whippets" (1), "whitethroats" (1), "wildebeest" (1), "willow

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438 The History Teacher

ptarmigans" (1), and "windmills" (4). There are but three photographs under "World War II," but eight of "sunsets" and eleven of "pianos."

Students and teachers who know the names of photographers and who want to locate published works by them can consult this guide, but they will find only a handful of citations for each one. Since the index is based on such a narrow selection of anthologies, the selection will be limited in scope and uninformed with respect to importance or quality. There are only eight photographs by Matthew Brady and his staff, for example, and only seven by Jacob Riis. There is nothing at all from T. E. Marr, S. B. Frank, or Charles Dudley Arnold, three of the great photographers of the "Grand Style" school which so influenced nineteenth-century urban American photography. Foreign photographers are even more poorly represented.

It is quite possible that the author, who is a telephone reference librarian in the Nassau County (New York) library system, knows what her patrons want and need. But historians are poorly served. In the opinion of this reviewer, the publication of Index I points up the long-standing and unfortunate communication barrier between working historians and working reference librarians. Many reference books-indexes, bibliographical manuals, even computerized search listings--fall painfully short either because of their built-in limitations or because of their deadening neutrality. This volume would be more accurately titled An Abbreviated Uncritical Index, Deliberately Ignoring Historical Issues, of the Work ofSome Famous Photographers TakenfromAnthologiesLikely to Be Shelved in Most Libraries, Indexed by Photographer, Subject, and Portraits of Named Individuals.

University of Miami, Coral Gables Robert M. Levine

Historical Dictionary of the New Deal: From Inauguration to Preparation for War, edited by James S. Olson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.611 pages. $65.00, cloth.

The fiftieth anniversary of the New Deal generated a re-assessment of that era. James S. Olson has edited an important reference work to compliment the rich outpouring of New Deal studies. The dictionary concentrates almost exclusively on domestic figures, pro- grams, organizations, court cases, legislation, and terms, and ignores foreign policy questions. This focus isjustified, since the Depression was the overriding force in American life in the 1930s. The four appendices provide a chronology of the New Deal, a list of key personnel, a bibliography of New Deal programs, and a table of acronyms of what some have termed the New Deal "alphabet soup".

The signed essays, which contain at least one up-to-date reference, do more than merely describe. Longer essays, such as that on the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, capture the bitter internal policy struggles, the successes in achieving parity for many farmers, and the dilemma of black southern tenant farmers harmed or left out by these programs. Similarly, the discussion of the Democratic Party relates accurately its transfor- mation from a rural southern and urban northern machine into a national coalition that became regionally divided after 1938.

Students unfamiliar with the exact names of New Deal agencies or legislation will have some difficulty using this reference tool. Planning, a major aspect of the bureaucratic state the New Deal created, is not listed with a cross-reference. One must know to look under the National Resources Planning Board to find a superb essay explaining the heated debate over this issue. Taxation, to cite another example, is not listed as a subject and then cross- referenced to the essay on the revenue acts.

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