"Canals" by Robert J. Kapsch is the second volume in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks in its Architectural, Design and Engineering series and has just been published by the Library of Congress in association with W.W. Norton and Co. It joins "Barns" by George Washington University professor John Michael Vlach, which features more than 800 illustrations from the Library's collections of these unique cultural landmarks.
Drawing on the Library's extensive collection of photographs, illustrations and architectural drawings, "Canals" provides the largest single source of material for those interested in the fascinating history of America's first transportation network. The book offers a tour of the more than three dozen structures that by 1835 constituted the 2,500-mile system of canals from New England to the South and from the East Coast to the Midwest. It provides a more detailed visual journey along two of the nation's most famous canals: the Chesapeake and Ohio in the District of Columbia and Maryland (now a national park) and the Morris Canal in New Jersey (largely lost to development).
With captions that furnish relevant information about each image as well as the Library of Congress call number, the book is an essential reference for all enthusiasts of canal landscape and lore. The accompanying CD-ROM contains high-quality, downloadable versions of all the illustrations. The CD also offers a direct link to the Library's online searchable catalogs and image files, including the hundreds of thousands of high-resolution photographs, measured drawings and data files in the Historic American Buildings Survey, Historic American Engineering Record and other collections.
Kapsch is currently the National Park Service senior scholar in historic architecture and engineering. As special assistant to the deputy director of the National Park Service, he served as project engineer for the restoration of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and its structures. He served for 15 years as chief of the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record collectionss, which are now held by the Library of Congress, and is the author of several definitive histories of early American canal engineering, including "The Potomac Canal: A Construction History" and "The Conewago Canal: Pennsylvania's First Canal."
Authentic music from the canal boat era, selected from the collections of the Library's American Folklife Center by folk archivist Andy Wallace, provided an appropriate accompaniment to remarks about the book by Kapsch at the Library on Oct. 19. Introduced by Ford Peatross, the Library's curator for architecture, design and engineering collections, Kapsch confessed that he had had a "lifetime fascination with American canals," and that "just working on the book was a great joy to me." During his talk he focused on the building of the canals in the Washington area, discussed the technology used and noted that seven canals were planned or built in and around the city. Admitting that the book was a true labor of love for him, Kapsch concluded by saying, tongue in cheek, that his only "serious disagreement" in the course of the production of the volume was "the size of the type font of my name on the cover."
"Canals" and "Barns" are each available for $75 in bookstores nationwide and through the Library's Sales Shop, Washington, DC 20540-4985. Credit card orders are taken at (888) 682-3557. Online orders can be placed at www.loc.gov/shop/.
