Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brooklyn Bridge, most of which have never been published, appear in this edition of Alan Trachenberg's Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol. In the new afterword Trachenberg explores the history of Hart Crane's The Bridge, especially the poem's integral relationship with the powerful photography of Evans."[Brooklyn Bridge] is familiar in so many movies, in so many stage sets and, as Mr. Trachtenberg shows in this brilliant . . . book, it is at least as much a symbol as a reality. . . . Mr. Trachtenberg is always exciting and illuminating."—Times Literary Supplement "The book is a skillful and insightful synthesis of materials about Brooklyn Bridge from such diverse fields as history, engineering, literature and art. Essentially it asks the question of why Brooklyn Bridge achieved such great impact on the nineteenth century American imagination and why it has continued to have a significant impact on twentieth century art and literature. In addition to its exploration of the bridge's symbolic significance, which includes perceptive analyses of such particular works as Hart Crane's great poem cycle and the paintings of artists like Joseph Stella, the book also includes a solidly researched account of the conception, planning and construction of the bridge. Trachtenberg's account of the intellectual and cultural sources of the bridge is particularly fascinating in its demonstration of the convergence of many different philosophical and ideological currents of the time around this great engineering enterprise, illustrating as effectively as any discussion I know the complex interplay of ideas and material culture."—John G. Cawelti, University of Chicago"Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge is a fascinating story, the philosophic genesis of the idea in Europe, John Roebling's heroic effort to translate it into masonry and steel, and the meanings that Americans attached to the physical object as an emblem of their aspirations."—Leo Marx, Amherst College, author of The Machine in the Garden

Winner of the 2005 Francis Parkman Prize A century ago, U.S. policy aimed to sever the tribal allegiances of Native Americans, limit their ancient liberties, and coercively prepare them for citizenship. At the same time millions of arriving immigrants sought their freedom by means of that same citizenship. In this subtle, eye-opening new work, Alan Trachtenberg argues that the two developments were, inevitably, juxtaposed: Indians and immigrants together preoccupied the public imagination, and together changed the idea of what it meant to be American. To begin with, programs of "Americanization" were organized for both groups, yet Indians were at the same time celebrated as noble "First Americans" and role models. Trachtenberg traces the peculiar effect of this implicit contradiction, with Indians themselves staging "The Song of Hiawatha" (which was also translated into Yiddish); Edward Curtis's poignant photographs memorializing vanishing heroism; and the Wanamaker department store making a fortune from commercialized versions of their once reviled cultures. By 1925 the national narrative had been rewritten, and citizenship was granted to Indians as a birthright, while the National Origins Act began to close the door on immigrants. "In Shades of Hiawatha," Trachtenberg eloquently suggests that we must re-create America's tribal creation story in new ways if we are to reaffirm its beckoning promise of universal liberty.