H.H. Bennett, Photographer His American Landscapes (Terrace/ University of Wisconsin Press), by Sara Rath

H.H. Bennett isn’t usually discussed in the same breadth as Ansel Adams or Edward Steichen, but as Sara Rath insists in her biography, he deserves to be considered along with great American photographers during the first century of the camera’s existence. The proof is in the pictures, and Rath’s account is profusely illustrated with Rath’s carefully composed work that “harmonized photography and nature” into small masterpieces. Based in Kilbourn City (now the Wisconsin Dells), Bennett often roamed the Wisconsin countryside but also photographed Milwaukee as well St. Paul and Chicago before his death in 1908. His pictures open a window to the Midwest of an earlier epoch.