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An American Journey: The Photography of William England

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William England's format was stereographs, he came to America on behalf of a stereograph company. One might expect that a book on his American photography might reproduce at least a few stereographs. Nope. Nada. None.

Paging through this book of carefully reproduced half-stereographs, one's heart aches for the rest of the picture. It is very clear from the half-images presented, that England must have had a wonderful eye for the three dimensional impact of a good stereograph, and one longs to benefit from that vision. In vain.

Presumably the compiler or publisher of this volume wanted to reproduce the imagery as large as possible, so chose to throw one half in order to enlarge the other. This is very similar to the butchers who for years gave us great movies in hacked pan-and-scan, rather than the letter-boxing that has replaced it as a better-educated video audience has demanded the full image.

Good books on the work of stereographic photographers reproduce stereographs. Perhaps interspersed with enlarged half-stereograph to better show detail, but even those are often also presented in full stereographic form, unless part of the stereographic pair was damaged beyond recovery.

Unfortunately, the author had a theory about the European view of pre-Civil War America as a utopia, and was either oblivious to, or abjectly willing to sacrifice, esthetic value as subordinate to expounding that academic theory.

This book dishonors both the photographer and the buyer.

Stereoviews were the TV of Victorian England and America. The form presented exotic locations and people as they were, without the sometimes floridly Romantic eye of the landscape painter. In the late 1850's, William England of the London Stereoptic Company became the first commercial photographer to take a series of stereoviews of the US for the European market. Ian Jeffrey has raided the George Eastman House collection to show us what England the photographer, and by extension, what England the country, saw. The America of this book is an arcadia, a world where Man's ingenuity is triumphing over the wilderness, over the rivers, even over Niagara Falls. New York bustles. The Capitol in Washington is being built. Ingenious bridges span the Niagara River. And none of it is to last. England (and Jeffrey) capture a poignant instant in the history of the US: the arcadian vision before the country descends into the horror of the Civil War. An American Journey: the Photography of William England is a beautiful (and beautifully produced) book that shows the reader this all-too-brief moment of American history.