1: A Treasure!
For the asking price, Historic Photos of Cincinnati is a steal, since someone could have spent years seeking out the photographs gathered for this treasure of a book and not located half of them. Revealing daily life and special events in Cincinnati from the 1860's to the 1960's, this collection can't have enough good things written about it. I only wish photos from the generation before 1860, when the Queen City of the West was billed as "the fastest-growing metropolis on earth," had been included as well, particularly the famous 1840's panoramic daguerreotype of the riverfront on an early Sunday morning, but, hey, what's already in here makes for hours of interesting study. Some of the pictures, such as the 1892 shot of workers in P&G's central office, are especially fascinating for the details they reveal about everyday goings on. That and so many other photos are worth more than a casual glance, since they justify long examinations of the expressions and clothing and hairstyles of the workers, the contents of the desktops, the gas piping that crisscrossed the ceiling, the wire wastepaper baskets, all that and much else which tells more about the environment of a nineteenth-century office than an entire paragraph of description. I particularly liked page thirteen's picture of the militiamen in the 1880's assembled at Music Hall in the wake of the Courthouse Riots, Gatling guns loaded and at the ready, but my favorite image might be on page 131, wherein a half-completed Carew Tower is shown rising above Fifth and Vine, in 1930. Cincinnati is now into its third century, and it's gratifying to see that even as its people move toward the future, the fullness of the past is appreciated and unforgotten.
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