We welcome review copies of books by alumni. The books are donated to the Swarthmoreana section of McCabe Library after they have been noted for this column.
Rejoicing in nature
Barbara Gawthrop Hallowell '46,
Mountain Year: A Nature Notebook,
John F. Blair, 1998.
North America has a rich heritage of naturalist writers--Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Henry Thoreau just for starters. Barbara Hallowell's ['46] collection of essays on the life and times of nature in the southern Appalachians can be added to that list.
In the manner of Edwin Way Teal, Hallowell organizes her thoughts as a yearlong calendar of 85 one- to two-page sketches about natural events. In winter, she covers winter weather and how birds keep from freezing; in spring it is flowers, trees, and ferns; summer brings insects, toads, and salamanders; and in autumn, she explains how pollution has altered the famous blue haze of the Smoky Mountains and tells us why leaves fall. Despite my training as a field biologist and naturalist, I learned a thing or two myself: the derivation of the name "Wake Robin," that toads like to be tickled, that ragweed is an important food source for birds, and the difference between rime ice and hoarfrost.
Hallowell rejoices in nature and is at her best describing the joys of snake watching or defending unappreciated animals such as earthworms, blackbirds, or vultures. The book packs a lot of science into short essays, although I could tell when she wrote about things she had read about rather than having experienced them herself. Occasionally, the reader is slowed by taxonomic discussions that pertain only to her region of the country, but most of the writing is witty and sprightly, emphasizing appreciation of nature rather than its description.
Almost anyone who enjoys the woods will learn something in this book, but it will hold a special interest for those who know the Appalachians--especially the southern half of that range. Hallowell's interests are so broad that she will give most readers a new appreciation of some aspect of the natural world, such as her explanations of how to make sumac tea, what a simple hand lens reveals, and how to follow the tracks of leaf miners in green leaves.
The book is thoughtfully designed with many fine color photographs by the author and others. There is both an index and a references section, which might better have been called recommended reading. (One surprising omission from the latter is the excellent three-volume series on bird behavior by the author's fellow alumnus Donald Stokes '69 and his wife, Lillian.)
I was a bit apprehensive when asked to do this review. I feared I would have to say nice things about yet another tree-hugging alum enthusing over the beauties of nature, about which he or she knew little. But this book is so informative, accurate, and just plain fun reading that I am going to buy copies as presents for friends and relations.
--Timothy Williams '64
Professor of Biology
A wish come true
Molly McGarry and Fred Wasserman '78, Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America, New York Public Library/Penguin Studio, 1998.
In June 1994, more than a million queer people from around the world descended on New York City to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which many see as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. One of the most astonishing sights that summer was the enormous banner proclaiming an exhibition titled "Becoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall" that dominated the Fifth Avenue facade of the New York Public Library.
The Stonewall Inn, a well-known Greenwich Village gay bar, was raided by the New York City police on June 28, 1969. The vice squad--and the queer patrons themselves--were surprised when the routine raid turned into a riot as bar patrons and other gays, fed up with official harassment of homosexuals, fought back.
Inside the library, visitors were treated to a series of rich sensory experiences that made visible a history of New York's lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, both individuals and communities, in the 20th century. Artifacts--including musical recordings--from each decade of the century documented private and public lives, diverse communities, movements, and public cultures. From lesbian pulps to physique art, no aspect of queer life went unexamined.
The exhibition drew primarily on materials acquired by the library in the 1980s, but it was rounded out by objects recovered through the tenacious efforts of its intrepid curators, Fred Wasserman '78, Molly McGarry, and Mimi Bowling. Visitors left the library visibly moved, and many returned repeatedly, commenting that they wished the show might travel to their hometown.
With the publication of Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America by McGarry and Wasserman, they will finally see their wish realized. This superb book instantly takes its place as the best available illustrated history of queer people in the United States.
The authors have managed to reproduce all the virtues of the exhibition, while expanding the story to include a fuller account of personalities, communities, and events in other parts of the United States. In four sections titled "Stonewall"; "Sodomites, Perverts, and Queers"; "Social Worlds"; and "Organizing," they summarize the historical literature in these fields, illustrating it with more than 300 exquisite reproductions of photographs, documents, and objects from The New York Public Library's collections. These illustrations draw the reader into hitherto invisible realms that narrate a full range of experience from the intensely private to the blatantly public. The pioneering efforts of community historians have only recently produced these historical narratives for us; now this book makes them tangibly real for the first time.
Becoming Visible is far more than a fascinating photographic record. Its authors have drawn intelligently from the available historical literature, offering a written text that takes its place among the best general syntheses of 20th-century lesbian and gay American history.
--Pieter Judson '78
Associate Professor of History
Brian L. Hawkins and Patricia Meyer Battin '51 (eds.), The Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Information Resources for the 21st Century, Council on Library and Information Resources and Association of American Universities, 1998. This collection of essays addresses the changes in technology and their impact on ways academic communities will provide information resources in the 21st century.
Peter Bloom '65, The Life of Berlioz, Cambridge University Press, 1998. As part of a series providing accounts of the lives of major composers, this book about Berlioz places the French musician in the periods of the Bourbon Restoration, July Monarchy, Second Republic, and Second Empire in which he lived and worked as composer, conductor, concert manager, and writer.
Michelangelo Celli '95, Words Are Dogs Barking at Windmills, Vantage Press, 1998. Winner of the "Editor's Choice Award" in the National Library of Poetry's New Poets Competition, Celli evokes humor, intrigue, and wisdom in this volume of unique verse.
Eugene F. Brigham, Louis C. Gapenski, and Michael C. Ehrhardt '77, Financial Management: Theory and Practice, 9th ed., Dryden Press, 1999. This textbook in corporate finance is designed primarily for M.B.A. programs and then as a reference in follow-on case courses and after graduation. Also appropriate as an undergraduate introductory text for exceptional students, this book may be used when the introductory course is taught over two terms.
Margot Gayle and Carol Gayle '58, Cast-Iron Architecture in America: The Significance of James Bogardus, W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. The first book on the life and work of James Bogardus, a pioneer of cast-iron architecture in America, describes the refacing of American cities in the mid-19th century.
Janet Letts '52, Legendary Lives in La Princesse de Clèves, Rockwood Press, 1998. This study arose from Letts' curiosity about the internal narratives of La Princesse de Clèves, providing glimpses of 16th-century history.
Richard Martin '67, The Ceaseless Century: 300 Years of Eighteenth-Century Costume, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998. Martin, curator of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, analyzes fashions of the 18th to 20th centuries.
Elizabeth (Sutherland) Martínez '46, De Colores Means All of Us, South End Press, 1998. In these essays, Martínez chronicles Chicana/o history and pres-ents a radical Latina perspective on race, liberation, and identity.
Yopie Prins '81 and Maeera Shreiber, Dwelling in Possibility, Cornell University Press, 1997. This collection, which interweaves feminist critical essays and poetic meditations on genre and gender, cuts across conventional boundaries between critics and poets--suggesting new ways of thinking about history and identity.
Mary Roelofs Stott '40, Mary's World, International University Press, 1997. In a foreword by husband Gilmore Stott, this posthumously published volume of collected essays is described as expression of intensely private thought, which evokes universal recognition in people from all walks of life.
Mara Taub '60, Juries: Conscience of the Community, Chardon Press, 1998. These readings for students and prospective jurors on the realities of the police, court, and penal code provide a guide for understanding our criminal justice system.
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Copyright Swarthmore College 1998