An honest to God book review

If you are a history buff or even remotely interested in the days gone by and live in or have ties to Minneapolis, Minnesota, there's a great book full of fabulous, clear, crisp and detailed photos ranging from the city's beginnings in the 1850s to more recent times in the 1970s.

The book, Historic Photos of Minneapolis, has such high quality photos thanks to the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minneapolis Public Library and the Library of Congress. If prints of these historic photos were used in the production of this book, they must have been well taken care of from day one but I presume that negatives were used in the assembly of this collection of 200 photos.

Not stopping at just photos, the book also contains well-researched, brief but informative captions written by the manager of the Special Collections Library at the Minneapolis Public Library, Heather Block Lawton. Ms. Lawton obviously spent quite some time researching and writing captions for the 200 photos contained in the book.

Some of my favorites included finding out that Northrup King seed company had very humble beginnings on Hennepin Avenue in a one room house. It's kernels (pardon the pun) of information like that which I can truly appreciate due to being a mere ten years removed from the farm.

Another high point in reading through this book is seeing the striking architecture of the buildings of the past and being able to truly appreciate them in the simple black and white format which is so striking to me. I feel that James Lileks would be particularly jealous of this aspect of Historic Photos of Minneapolis (even though his collection of historic photos is pretty cool to see too) however I would have liked to see at least the name of the original photographers to give the book an added sense of historical significance.

I can safely say that the folks at Turner Publishing have done an outstanding job with this title in laying the foundation for what could evolve into a series of in-depth eras of photographic history and have included a satisfying mix of scenery, people and architecture photography from the vast history of Minneapolis and I can't wait to write my take on the companion book for St. Paul.

If it's photos you're after, you know the drill... MinnPics... every day, something new and awe inducing from Minnesota photographers.