Hudson River Panorama: A Passage Through Time.

Ward, Daniel Franklin

Hudson River Panorama: A Passage Through Time, by Tammis K. Groft, W Douglas McCombs, and Ruth Greene-McNally. Albany: State University of New York (Excelsior Editions), 2009. 134 pages, black-and-white and color photographs, illustrations, bibliography, index, $29.95 paper.

The Hudson River has been the focus of hundreds of writings over the four centuries since Henry Hudson's failed quest for an inland passage to Asia through the North American continent. Hudson River Panorama: A Passage Through Time adds to that body of literature a unique, beautifully illustrated, and well-presented history of the great river and its impact on the peoples of New York State.

The Albany Institute of History and Art, founded in 1791, is one of the longest continuously operating historical organizations in North America and has been a prominent institution in the Hudson River Valley for more than two hundred years. In anticipation of the 2009 Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial, an international celebration that stretched from New York City up the Hudson River and through Lake Champlain to the Province of Quebec, the Albany Institute devoted over three years to concentrated research on topics related to the Hudson River. The result was an exhibition, a variety of accompanying educational programs, and the present volume, which serves both as the exhibit's catalog and as a stand-alone panoramic view of the history of the Hudson through a new interpretive prism. The popularity of the Hudson River Panorama exhibit was so great that the Albany Institute extended it an additional year. This book shares with the popular exhibit a clarity of interpretation and exceptional illustrations.

To find illustrations for the themes in the Hudson's history, a research team of Tammis K. Groft, W. Douglas McCombs, and Ruth Greene-McNally mined the Albany Institute's renowned collections, examining hundreds of artifacts, artworks, and rare archival documents. So extensive are the institute's holdings from the Hudson Valley that an immediate challenge was to establish interpretive criteria that would narrow selection to the most striking illustrations of key events, people, and ideas that could be related to broader narratives of Hudson River history.

The book, which includes a foreword by the Albany Institute's director Christine M. Miles and an essay by distinguished historian John R. Stilgoe, is organized around four major themes: "natural history and environment," "transportation," "trade, commerce, and industry," and "culture and symbol." Largely paralleling the organization of the museum exhibit, these themes serve the reader well as an introduction to many of the essential events and figures in regional history. A volume this small, however, should not be mistaken for a comprehensive history. That is not the purpose of this book. Any deeper understanding of the details of this history will require further study, and a good starting point for such study would be the texts listed in the selected bibliography.

Although one of the authors, Tammis Groft, holds an advanced degree in folklore, the authors clearly did not intend Hudson River Panorama as a folklife survey. Yet there is much that will be of interest to any reader of Voices. The interaction between people and the Hudson's landscape over time presents an opportunity to study the constant interplay between traditional folklife and popular culture, particularly after the Erie Canal transformed the Hudson into the primary cultural conduit between the vast interior of North America and the entire rest of the world through the Port of New York. The book's illustrations are packed with information about Hudson Valley folkways, such as fishing, farmstead layout, and ice harvesting.

Hudson River Panorama succeeds in drawing together and presenting a number of themes in regional history in a well-organized narrative, illustrated by artifacts and artworks selected from one of the oldest and most extraordinary museum collections in the United States. Each part of the larger Albany Institute project commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage up the river is an important contribution to our understanding of the Hudson River through time. Hudson River Panorama: A Passage Through Time is a beautiful book that will certainly provide much enjoyment and no doubt some enlightenment to almost any reader. It will make a fine addition to the library of any historian or folklorist and will be at home on any New Yorker's coffee table.

--Daniel Franklin Ward, Erie Canal Museum