Volume 18 , Issue 19

Adventures In America (1938) by John Atlee Kouwenhoven

It was in the Freeport Journal-Standard, Freeport, Illinois, dated 23 November 1938, page 10, that we found this mention of John A. Kouwenhoven's book, "Adventures In America," a pictorial history book of America with text by John A. Kouwenhoven.

Found on Newspapers.com

It was not often that a reviewer could dive into the depths of a new book and come out on the other side with the honest statement: "This is an exciting book." But it does happen once in a while; it is happening right now, as far as this particular reviewer is concerned, in connection with Adventures of America, a pictorial record of American history from 1857-1900, compiled by John A. Kouwenhoven from the files of Harper's Weekly (Harper's).

In this fat book you get a day-by-day record of America as it looked from a contemporary viewpoint. It is much as if you had a file of Life magazine running back to pre-Civil war days; for although these Harper's w=Weekly pictures are sketches rather than photographs, they proved the same effect.

Some of them may look rather quaint to our eyes. They were drawn before anything resembling the present photo engraving process had been dreamed of; illustrators worked under vast mechanical handicaps in those days. Yet the net effect is not one of quaintness at all. On the contrary, this book takes you back almost bodily, to a vanished era, and gives you all of its authentic flavor. There is not space here to list all of the subjects covered by these illustrations. The Civil war, the opening of the west, the depressions and labor troubles of the post-Civil war years, the development of American industry, the changes i fashions - all are recorded set off admirably by Mr. Kouwenhoven's succinct comment.
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