Ecotourism in The Books Store

An ardent early suffragette, Edna Brush Perkins set out in 1920 with her friend, Charlotte Hannahs Jordan, to journey into the Mojave, both women seeking to escape civilization and their struggle to secure voting rights for women. The Mojave at that time was considered to be a desolate, inaccessible region--part of the fading American frontier. Originally published in 1922, The White Heart of Mojave is Perkins' account of this journey.

Perkins' evocative writing describes the landscape and the people she encounters. As editor Peter Wild writes, this is ultimately the story of two wealthy women who enter Death Valley "as a sort of middle-aged lark" and "emerge from the trip profoundly changed."

Residents of the Mid-Atlantic states may know of Passaic Falls in New Jersey, Bushkill Falls (the "Niagara of Pennsylvania"), or the Great Falls of the Potomac in Maryland. Yet there are many other falls that are less known, just beyond the view from the highway. Some thunder awesomely, others are gossamer trickles. And, surprisingly, some are in the heart of the region's biggest cities. These natural water wonders are for the most part on public lands throughout Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

This is the first comprehensive guidebook to the region's waterfalls, rated by author Gary Letcher on a scale of 1-5. Each of the falls are described according to:

• Location, including GPS coordinates
• Access and directions
• Trail length and difficulty
• Stream and waterfall characteristics
• Geological factors
• Natural, historical, and cultural features

From its formation in Pittsburgh to its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio River passes through a landscape that is, for photographer Andrew Borowiec, "both exotic and authentically American." Borowiec's eighty duotone images explore the cultural landscape of this region, presenting clapboard houses and white picket fences, pickup trucks and rusting sedans, back yards with satellite dishes or with barbecue grills made from fifty-five-gallon oil drums. The pictures concentrate on the common scenes of everyday life and work, especially in the small, mostly blue-collar towns along the Ohio. While taking these photographs, Borowiec says, he came to realize that "the region's story was central to America's evolution from colonial wilderness to industrial superpower."

Along the Ohio illustrates the current condition of a region that was essential to the economic vitality of the United States. Many factories, once a source of prosperity, lie idle. Houses and banks stand boarded up and rusting machinery litters the river's edge. But Borowiec's camera finds a resilient strength, even among deteriorating homes--carefully mowed lawns or freshly painted fences are signs that residents still strive for pride and the American Dream, despite their less-than-ideal circumstances.

To take his photographs, Borowiec preferred to walk along back alleys, in the belief that the rear of a house tells more about its residents than they might reveal in their front yard. Although there are few pictures with people in them, the human presence is evident in all of these photographs--they capture an environment that has been transformed by its residents. These residents, initially suspicious of this man with a camera, peering over fences, soon responded to Borowiec's interest with local legends and suggestions for places to photograph. In the same way, the photographer clearly grew to identify with his subjects--a fact especially evident in a series of poignant and sympathetic images taken during the 1997 flood and its aftermath.

Borowiec observes in the introduction: "The social and economic condition of the Ohio River valley mirrors that of countless places in the United States where people are not as well off as they once were or as they would like to be." His photographs constitute an original artistic statement about life in the postindustrial United States.