On the Road Again: Montana's Changing Landscape by William Wyckoff

Abstract

ON THE ROADAGAIN: MONTANA'SCHANGINGLANDSCAPE by WilliamWyckoff foreword by William Cronon University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2006. Photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 197pages. $26.95. Rarely can a littlebook saya lot,but such is the casewith geographerWilliam Wyckoff's study of theMontana landscape through historical and contemporary photographs. The image carries the story ? and what a set of images are presented inOn the Road Again:Montana's Changing Landscape. Wyckoff selected a setof historic photographs ofMontana roadsides largelytakenby the statehighway department from the 1920s to the 1940s. He thenhit theroad himself and searched out theexact spotswhere thephotographs were initiallytaken.Then he took a new photograph, compared the two,and the two images lead readers to thinkabout the meaning of the landscape innew ways. The organization is straightforward.The introductory"Journeyinto Montana" provides context and perspective to the study. "Along Montana Highways" comprises thebulk of the book, a documentation process that includes subsections on boundaries, rivers, railroads, passageways, forested lands, open spaces, sacred places, landmarks, rural legacy,main street,urban life,suburbs, old west, and new west.Wyckoff offersa conclusion inhis final section, "Destinations," and closes with a use ful bibliographical essay on his secondary sources. Within the documentary subsections, the format of On theRoad Again is disarmingly simple.One side of thepage contains the two photographs, expertlyreproduced by thepress, and the other side containsWyckoff's history and commentary on the location. Those who have traveled the state's road sides will each have their favorite examples. Mine tend to be the photographs that focus on the state's evolving infrastructure, be it highways (therearenaturallymany,many road pictures), powerlines, signage,bridges, or town plans. The impact ofthe engineered landscape, always prominent in theMontana past, became fargreaterby the end of the century.The hu man scale and presence manifested in an iron bridge of the 1920s, for instance, disappeared by the time of Wyckoff's travels, with the steel frame replaced typically by the flatmass of concrete thatcelebrated thepower ofmaterials and thebelief in functionality inour times. The interplay between the highway and the railroad is another constant theme of the images.When first composed and taken, the railroad dominated and the road appeared tobe a poor substitute.By century's end, that relationship had reversed,perhaps best docu mented in Wyckoff's photographs at Superior inwesternMontana (p. 42). The end resultof Wyckoff's carefulwork is an insightful, enjoyable book. It isof greatvalue to historical geographers, students of land scape, and historic preservationists. Wyckoff is correct to emphasize that the greatest changes to thewestern landscape are happening now, but the change is focused in places such as Belgrade, Bozeman, andManhattan and not so much in theCircles andWinnetts ofMontana. He also makes an important contribution to the scholarly literatureon how capitalism on the frontier changed thewestern landscape in the twentieth century and how corporate power dictated the paths of steel, roads, and powerlines. On theRoad Again will be of equal interest to thosewho travel,especially offthe interstate along the older state and federal highways of Montana. The author hopes thatothers follow his lead in looking at and thinkingabout what changes in the landscape mean. His simple yet effective approach opens thisprocess ofdiscov erytoanyonewith a setofhistoric photographs (perhaps those from their own families), an automobile, and a good camera. "There isnothing quite likelooking through a camera lens and seeing exactlyhow a cultural landscape has changed over the past sixty to 632 OHQ vol. 107, no. 4 eightyyears," Wyckoff admits (p.xiii). Icertain lyagree. I continue to travel and photograph favorite places ? often repeating locations ? almost twenty-five years after taking three thousand photographs for projects with the Montana Historical Society and the Montana StateHistoric PreservationOffice. It was appar ent then thatthestoryofthe Big SkyCountry is best told through itslandscapes. The power of the landscape isevenmore impressive through the lens and the prose ofWilliam Wyckoff's most interestingstudy. Carroll Van West Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro JEANNETTE RANKIN: A POLITICAL WOMAN by James Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2005. Photographs, bibliography, index. 328 pages. $34.95 cloth. In thishighly readable account, we learn that JeannetteRankin is not merely the feminist trailblazerand pacifist iconof popular mythol ogy but a human being "drivenby a demon...