AMERICA THROUGH THE LENS

From Matthew Brady to NASA and NOAA, a series of biographical sketches illuminates the lives and achievements of photographers “who have used their cameras to remind us of all that is good in our lives and all that needs to be corrected.” Explicitly activist photographers such as Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine share the pages with nature photographer William Henry Jackson, fashion photographer Toni Frissell and others, all carefully presented to highlight the ways their work served to change both the art and science of photography and their subjects. Many of the individuals portrayed will be unfamiliar to young readers, such as Frances Benjamin Johnston, whose series of photographs of the Hampton Institute in Virginia and the Tuskegee Institute presented a drastically different image of African-Americans to a white audience accustomed to stereotypes of buffoonery and shiftlessness. While some might question the absence of fine art photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe and the presence of NASA and NOAA, the sample presented—lavishly illustrated with their own works—stands as a solid introduction to the history of photography in America. One weakness is the absence from the suggestions for further reading of those books that exist for young readers on the photographers discussed—a crying shame. (Nonfiction. 10-14)