technology and culture Book Reviews 167 modes of representation, and in methods of film production as well as in machines. It was the change in the production of films that hastened the end of Porter’s career and his estrangement from the Edison company. Porter worked in a collaborative environment based on informal relationships and a loose division of labor. The important work of film editing, for example, was carried out by both producers and exhibi tors. The move to centralized film production brought more special ization in filmmaking and a rigid hierarchy of function. Porter resisted this change and the inevitable rise of the studio system. He also lost favor with the Edison company because he failed to adopt new modes of representation in film: the man so often characterized as author of modern film editing was in fact out of tune with audience needs by 1910. Porter’s methods and the way he told stories in his films were obsolete by the time motion pictures became the vehicles for mass communication. The University of California Press has done both Musser and Porter proud: this is a profusely illustrated book which contains stills from many of the films Musser consulted. As the book is meant to be used in conjunction with viewing the films, the author has also produced a documentary which shows many of the films he discusses in the text. The author’s argument that newspapers provided much of the inspiration for Porter’s films is supported by illustrations from the popular press. The book is punctuated with numerous extracts from primary sources and supported by detailed statistics about film production. This volume is one of three books written by Musser on the history of American film that have appeared in the last year. Taken as a whole they provide a new understanding of the dynamics of early film and confirm Musser’s position as the preeminent historian of this impor tant field. Andre Millard Dr. Millard, the author of Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore, 1990), is associate professor of history and director of the American Studies program at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Alaskan Aviation History. Vol. 1: 1897—1928. Vol. 2: 1929—1930. By Robert W. Stevens. Des Moines, Wash.: Polynyas Press (P.O. Box 98904,98198), 1990. Pp. xx+1,097; illustrations, bibliography, index. $150.00 + $7.50 handling. No machine has done more to bring the modern world to rural Alaska, which is most of Alaska, than the airplane. Before aircraft, the great interior distances, with their complex topography and often 168 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE harsh and fickle weather, were traversed in winter only with dogsled and snowshoes. Ships called only at ice-free ports. A 470-mile federal railroad connected Seward on the Gulf of Alaska to Fairbanks in the interior, by way of Anchorage, but a few feet from the tracks, wilderness began. The same was true of a few narrow dirt roads that Alaskans called highways before World War II. By the end of 1930, the “bush pilot” was already transporting to this vast land food, fuel, medicine, some mail, and supplies thought necessary to make life tolerable in the backcountry. He carried miners and trappers to and from their claims, cannery executives to their fish canneries, hunting guides and their clients, fur buyers and their furs, and sightseers. He provided ambulance service or flew doctors and nurses to their patients. No wonder the early bush pilots soon occupied a prominent place in Alaskan folklore. By the end of the decade, Alaska even had a diesel-powered Bellanca Pacemaker owned by the Catholic church; soon after its arrival in the fall, it crashed, killing a civilian pilot and two Jesuit priests. Considering the condi tions under which the fliers worked, however, there were surprisingly few fatalities. The equipment evolved rapidly from open-cockpit, underpowered biplanes to powerful Stinson, Fairchild, and Lockheed monoplanes with roomy, comfortable cabins. For Alaskan aviation, Robert Stevens views replacement of the liquid-cooled engine with reliable air cooled engines, then turbine engines, as the most important innovations. Even with the air-cooled motors, pilots still carefully drained oil from the engine...
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