Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies | Ginger Strand | One of the better books I have read...

Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies | Ginger Strand | You will love it or hate it

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Inventing Niagara:...

	Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies Ginger Strand Simon & Schuster, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Americans call Niagara Falls a natural wonder, but the Falls aren't very natural anymore. In fact, they are a study in artifice. Water diverted, riverbed reshaped, brink stabilized and landscape redesigned, the Falls are more a monument to man's meddling than to nature's strength. Held up as an example of something real, they are hemmed in with fakery -- waxworks, haunted houses, IMAX films and ersatz Indian tales. A symbol of American manifest destiny, they are shared politely with Canada. Emblem of nature's power, they are completely human-controlled. Archetype of natural beauty, they belie an ugly environmental legacy still bubbling up from below. On every level, Niagara Falls is a monument to how America falsifies nature, reshaping its contours and redirecting its force while claiming to submit to its will.

Combining history, reportage and personal narrative, Inventing Niagara traces Niagara's journey from sublime icon to engineering marvel to camp spectacle. Along the way, Ginger Strand uncovers the hidden history of America's waterfall: the Mohawk chief who wrested the Falls from his adopted tribe, the revered town father who secretly assisted slave catchers, the wartime workers who unknowingly helped build the Bomb and the building contractor who bought and sold a pharaoh. With an uncanny ability to zero in on the buried truth, Strand introduces us to underwater dams, freaks of nature, mythical maidens and 280,000 radioactive mice buried at Niagara.

From LaSalle to Lincoln to Los Alamos, Mohawks to Marilyn, Niagara's story is America's story, a tale of dreams founded on the mastery of nature. At a time of increasing environmental crisis, Inventing Niagara shows us how understanding the cultural history of nature might help us rethink our place in it today.

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One of the better books I have read in 2008!!

When most Americans conjure up an image of Niagara Falls what most likely comes to mind is artist Frederick Church's iconic 1857 painting. In those days the Falls really were wild and wonderful and although a certain amount of development had already begun to take shape in the surrounding area those who loved revelling in the spendor of nature were likely to make a trip to Niagara a top priority. But unbeknownst to most of us what we see today at Niagara Falls is largely a mirage. The powers that be in New York state and Canada literally have the ability to turn the Falls completely off if they choose to! Just what has occurred over the past two centuries that has led this venerable natural wonder to be degraded so dramatically? Ginger Strand has had a lifelong fascination with Niagara Falls. In "Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies" Strand traces the largely unknown and unreported history of this national treasure. What you will discover will likely surprise and greatly disturb you.
I certainly had no idea of the long and diverse history of Niagara Falls. Although my wife and I have visited the Falls twice in the past 15 years we were totally unaware of just how much of the scene we were observing was being manipulated. For nearly 200 years vastly competing interests have been vying for economic advantage at Niagara Falls. In the pages of "Inventing Niagara" you will be introduced to many of the key players in the ongoing saga of the Falls and the adjacent communities. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 the Falls area immediately became a popular tourist attraction. It was fun reading about so many of the offbeat amusements that sprang up in the area during the middle of the 19th century. One of the most popular attractions was a colorful high wire artist named Blondin who wowed audiences for several summers with dramatic jaunts across the gorge. You will also discover how the long lost mummy of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses I wound up in the popular Niagara Falls Museum. A fascinating story! Another important slice of Niagara history is that Harriet Tubman ran her Underground Railway System from Niagara before the Civil War. Later on in the nineteenth century a group of well-heeled individuals emerged who had other ideas about how to best utilize the enormous hydro resources at the Falls. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing and power was badly needed to turn the wheels of industry. Soon chemical factories appeared all over the area spewing their toxic fumes and waste and forever altering the landscape. Sadly, in the 1940's thousands of workers at these plants were exposed to radioactive materials as they unwittingly did work on "The Manhatten Project" for the U.S. Department of Defense. You will also learn how the Army Corps of Engineers and an assortment of other state and federal agencies and private industry interests would come to be involved in altering and reshaping the Falls.
Author Ginger Strand brings a boatload of important new material to light in "Inventing Niagara". Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews she succeeds in bringing to life the checkered history of this once beloved region and speculates what the future might have in store. It turns out that Niagara Falls was so much more than merely "the honeymoon capitol of the world". This is a book that grabbed my attention in Chapter One and just would not let go. I simply could not put it down. One of the surprise hits of 2008! Highly recommended!

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You will love it or hate it

Ginger, I am being quite informal here, is a self described fanatic about Niagara Falls. So am I. Thus, while reading her book I felt like I had found a long lost friend. We could converse (although she could not hear me!) the many subjects about the lost Niagara, the damaged Niagara,the changed Niagara, the abused Niagara; well I could go on and on. (I wish someone could force the power companies, for one lousy day, to let the water flow naturally but I digress......)

Here's what I suggest. If you are one of these people that goes to Niagara Falls and can look for a few hours and be content to move on to the casinos or Clifton Hill entertainment (ie Ripley's, haunted houses, water slides) then you are not going to appreciate this book very much. However, if you really want to know some real "geeky" (my kids word for me, alas) stuff about hydro power, chemical landfills, misplaced mice killed by radiation, etc. then you will probably adore this book, as I did. The book scores on many levels.

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A confusing, fascinating view of Niagara

There are really two books here, an excellent history of an American/Canadian icon, and a confusing voyage of self discovery. I loved the first story, but was often irritated by the way Strand intruded with her speculations, often negated a page later, and her personal asides.

Strand's substantive portions are really superb; her overview of the toxic site histories and her discussion of honeymoon history at the falls, for example. (But what, exactly, does a Red Hat Society meeting have to do with honeymoons?)

Strand cites The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls by by Karen Dubinsky, an excellent study of honeymooning at Niagara. She writes a superb review in the main text of Marilyn Monroe's performance in Niagara; she's especially effective on Monroe's long walk away from the camera in one scene. She calls the wonderful Falling for Marilyn by Jock Carroll "an indispensable photographic essay". On weddings and honeymoons generally, she applauds Rebecca Mead's One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. Again, I'm not sure why she wrote about the Red Hat Society meeting, but did appreciate her compliment to "Constable Allen A. Rodgers, who gave me new respect for the many talents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. O Canada!"

Suggestion: read Strand's "Sources and Acknowledgments" pages, then visit her outstanding website, and then, if you have time to dawdle, read the book itself. She has put together a tremendous collection of excellent books and other sources in the book, and she has greatly strengthen some of the weaknesses in the book on her website. The sections on hydrotechnology are weak in the book but superb on the website. And her suggested tours of the Falls on her website are excellent, and surprisingly missing from the book itself.

This book is well worth reading for an understanding of Niagara if you can get past the biographical asides, and I urge you do so if you have any interest in Niagara.

Robert C. Ross 2008

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inventing niagara

If you are from N.F this book will bring back alot of memories. Not all of them fond. But a blast to read.

Retired Reader

Just a short note to let the reader know how much I enjoyed the book about Niagara Falls. I have lived on the West coast my entire life and have always thought of Niagara Falls as nothing more than a honeymoon destination. I had no idea about its past or all of the underlying tragedies that mankind has dumped on this natural wonder. I feel that this book told the story with both disgust as well as a deep caring for this community. I especially enjoyed the final chapter and got a real sense that even with all of the problems and man made issues that are still confronting this place, the author still loves it. When she were talking about the sound and the power of the falls, I wanted to hop on a plane and experience this for myself. Warts and all, she made it come to life.

There are so many great places in this country that I have yet to see, but this will be one that I will make it a point to go listen to the water.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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