Book Notices

Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier.

By John W. Ravage, (Salt Lake University of Utah Press, 1997 xxi + 224 pp $24.95.)

This book sets out to make the invisible visible African-Americans participated in virtually every aspect of the western settlement experience: black explorers, soldiers, midwives, cowboys, madams, prospectors, teachers, outlaws, families, and more all contributed to the region's social and physical landscape Yet the contributions of these individuals have all but vanished from the national consciousness

A media historian, author John Ravage uses photographs and snapshot-like narrative to make this point. The book, he says, is a partial answer to a question asked him thirty years ago: "And what are you doing about racial issues in our society?" Partial it may be, but this is an interesting and important reply, providing indelible testimony of the countless black individuals who influenced the West.

The Untold History of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

By MAXINE NEWELL and TERBY BARNES (Moab: Canyon Country Publications, 1998. 112 pp. Paper, $11.00.)

When in 1996 Bill Clinton announced the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, few people felt any sense of deja vu. But the fact is that sixty years earlier, the National Park Service had proposed an Escalante National Monument for southern Utah.

For ten years the NPS studied this initial proposal but ran into the same bitter resentment that Clinton would encounter after his announcement The Untold Story is not investigative journalism into the 1996 event; instead it details the NPS study of the nevercreated Escalante National Monument It does this mainly through summarizing and quoting the contents—reports, correspondence, and planning documents—of a fat government file on the issue This bureaucratic paper trail, condensed though it may be, makes for laborious reading, but the book does bring to light new information about conservation efforts on the Colorado Plateau and the perennial antipathy of many Utahns toward those efforts

West Fever.

By Brian W. Dippie (LOS Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with University of Washington Press, 1998 128 pp $35.)

An eclectic assortment of artifacts from the Autry Museum glows on these pages. Here, for example, are burnished landscapes a la Moran and Bierstadt; the twisting horses of Russell and Remington; movie posters ("BARBARA STANWYCK: woman afire in a land aflame!"); Indian souvenirs; beaded buckskins; and household items—like a red velvet parlor chair with arm- and headrests formed from buffalo horns (dangerous-sounding indeed, but the only real hazard lies in what this furniture might do to a decor).

Endowed by the recently deceased Gene Autry, the museum is not about homage to a star Instead, it explores the "context for a star's fame"; in celebrating the museum's tenth anniversary, the book gives an intriguing glimpse at collections that "illuminate the whole terrain" of the western myth (11)

The accompanying text tracks the history of West-consciousness as expressed through these artifacts of western iconography. Unfortunately, at times Dippie's essay abruptly changes course and wanders to an almost distracting degree Yet despite its moments of illogic, his writing—in conjunction, of course, with the rich illustrations—admirably "illuminates" a nation's obsession with the West.

Andy Warhol Slept Here ? Famous and Infamous Visitors to Utah.

By WILL SOUTH (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998. 81 pp. Paper, $12.95.)

Celebrities in Utah? So who cares?

The truth is, after a stroll through these accounts of famous and demifamous visits and non-visits (read the book to figure that out), it gets a little easier to care The anecdotes, fascinating pictures, and—is it possible?— meaning in these pages begin to accumulate weight as the reader moves beyond the old Brigham Young-Horace Greely story into more offbeat accounts

The stories are just plain fun, even when the author indulges in soapbox commentary on his pet subjects. Besides, the book becomes almost a meditation on the nature of celebrity. Bring a century and a half of the famous to the state and watch as Utahns react, and you actually have a rather interesting topic.