390 REVIEWS

Shorter notices

JAMES L. GARVJN, Historic Portsmouth (Somersworth, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Publishing Co., 1974. Pp. 144. $6.95)

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has an unusual number of streets, buildings and other landmarks essentially unchanged since the early nineteenth century. A private foundation, Strawbery Banke Inc., has operated in one portion of the city to move historical buildings threatened elsewhere to create a new landscape reminiscent of the eighteenth century. But much of Portsmouth has been destroyed through the city’s restless quest for growth and modernization. The author has assembled from the files of Strawbery Banke a photographic essay illustrating the city’s changing landscape through time. Separate sections deal with the early photographers of Portsmouth (whose photography is reproduced), the growth of the early town, the maritime heritage, commercial and industrial growth, public buildings, domestic architecture and the people of Portsmouth. The author emphasizes the need to preserve distinctiveness of place. As he writes in his preface: “It is time for those who know Portsmouth as it is today to see Portsmouth as it was yesterday; for those residents and visitors who are captivated by the town’s individuality to see that this individuality springs from a strong and unique local character that was once far more pronounced than it is in the twentieth century. No one, whether native, newcomer, or visitor, can see these pictures without experiencing a sense of loss and a deep regret that more traces of Portsmouth’s early culture have not been preserved. One can only ask whether the losses have been balanced by the gains”.

PAULINE CHASE HARRELL and MARGARET SUPPLEE (Eds), Victorian Boston Today: Ten Walking Tours Profusely Illustrated (Boston: The New England Chapter, The Victorian Society of America, 1975. Pp. ix-t- 142. $3.95)

Victorians everywhere will be happy to know that the outward embellishments of their culture are still revered among at least a small cadre of Bostonians. This clever guide- book, produced in a pseudo-Victorian style, points to much that is fine and wonderful among the relict nineteenth-century features of Boston’s present-day landscape. Each tour offers a different perspective, but the book does not pretend to cover completely the city’s surviving Victorian features. Tours focus on the following areas : the waterfront and commercial districts, the South End, South Boston, Copley Square, “Longwood” and “Cottage Farm” in Brookline (two subdivided estate farms) and Jamaica Plain (another suburb). Other tours are entitled ‘Boston women in the Victorian era’, ‘Stained glass in Back Bay churches’ and ‘The “El”, Boston’s eIevated railway stations’, involving a ride on the city’s oldest mass transit line.

Chicago’s Landmark Structures: An Inventory: Loop Area and Chicago’s Landmark Structures: An Inventory: Central Area-Near North, Near West, Near South (Chicago: Landmarks Preservation Council and Service, 1974 and 1975. Not paginated. $3-95 each)

Both of these architectural inventories identify the key buildings of downtown Chicago. The first inventory focuses on the area within the “loop” of the elevated mass transit system. The second extends the coverage towards the North, West and South by approxi- mately two miles. Brief descriptions of the architectural and historical values that warrant protection for each structure are provided. The stated purpose of the two inventories is to call attention to structures worthy of preservation and to begin a “collaborative undertaking between those who bring land to its highest and best use and . . . personnel who can assist in protecting the values identified in the inventories”. Members of the Landmarks Preservation Council have been instrumental in obtaining the passage of an Historic Preservation Act in Illinois, now recognized as one of the strongest pieces of preservation legislation in the United States.

University of Illinois JOHN A. JAKLE