Reviewed by:

• Bisbee: The Alchemical City of the Borderlands by Virgil Hancock III
• David Yetman (bio)

A few decades ago, the late Richard Shelton published a poetic memoir entitled Going Back to Bisbee. For readers familiar with Arizona history and landscapes, this was not a strange title at all, since Bisbee then, as now, exuded a curiously alluring presence in the state. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Virgil Hancock III's newest book, Bisbee: The Alchemical City of the Borderlands. In this most welcome publication, Hancock has turned his photographer's eye once again to a human landscape. The volume continues a series of photographic publications Hancock began several decades ago, most notably his volumes on Las Vegas and on Chihuahua, Mexico, but in this case the photos are supplemented by his own scholarly written essay on Bisbee and its history.

The latest book is a timely and compelling addition to the literature on Arizona's mining heritage and an incomparable portfolio of photographs. The book combines extensive written essays with a rich collection of Hancock's visualization of Bisbee supplemented by reprints of images from the early days of the town and its mines. His approach differs from that of most historians: he offers a series of written essays enlivened by a powerful photographic ensemble of images of Bisbee, historic and contemporary—several of them modern photos taken at the same location as those of the 19th century. The result is a visual recapitulation of the mining history of the town now better known for its artists and counterculture. This compelling collection of photographs and background descriptions forms a setting for his account of the great mining strike of 1917 and its aftermath. [End Page 397]

In his written essays, Hancock traces the lengthy history of Bisbee, a town founded on copper extraction. It combined the excesses of a mining boomtown with the social fracturing expected when the cheap labor of a heavily non-white and immigrant workforce maintains the machinery of corporate profits. Many images of the sharply delimited class structure of the western United States emerge from his photographs and corresponding historical narrative he employs, most effectively, I must add. Hancock skillfully juxtaposes the images of early Bisbee society and mining infrastructure (and the violence to the natural landscape it entailed) with the contemporary artistic culture and counterculture of the city. He also reminds us that Bisbee is practically a border town, a geographical oddity often overlooked. As such it has deep historical ties to the nearby Mexican copper mines at Cananea and Nacozari, themselves the scene of major and ongoing conflicts between labor and management.

The peculiar geography of the ore bodies in the area required the location of homes and businesses of Bisbee on the sides of the Mule Mountains and along arroyos that grace the town's flanks. Virgil especially enjoys walking the steep streets of the city, absorbing the strange and effective combination of the past and the present. As he puts it, "Walking through Bisbee is not just a historical journey, it is a sensual and spiritual journey as well." This sums up the theme of his book.

Bisbee society of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was dominated by fraternal organizations. The most notable were those quasi-secretive "brotherhoods," which included (but were not limited to) the scions of the business and financial sectors of the community. The most prominent organizations were limited to white men only, though some included auxiliary and affiliated organizations for women, whose role was to support the work of the fraternal organizations. Other, less powerful segments of Bisbee society also had "fraternal" organizations, but their influence paled in comparison to the white and business-dominated brotherhoods. Hancock has amassed a remarkable portfolio of portraits of the assembled white gentlemen, often decorated in their finest fraternal garb, which now seems strangely patrician. He performs an admirable service by connecting these socially pervasive and powerful groups to the development of the city and to the economic politics of the Bisbee...

审阅者：

• 比斯比：边境炼金之城维吉尔·汉考克三世
• 大卫·耶特曼（简介）

几十年前，已故的理查德·谢尔顿出版了一本诗意回忆录，题为回到比斯比。对于熟悉亚利桑那州历史和风景的读者来说，这根本不是一个奇怪的标题，因为比斯比当时和现在一样，在该州散发着一种奇怪的吸引力。这一点在维吉尔·汉考克三世的最新著作Bisbee：边疆炼金之城中表现得最为明显。在这本最受欢迎的出版物中，汉考克再次将摄影师的目光转向了人文景观。该卷是汉考克几十年前开始出版的一系列摄影出版物的延续，最著名的是他关于拉斯维加斯和墨西哥奇瓦瓦的卷，但在这本书中，这些照片由他自己撰写的关于比斯比及其历史的学术论文补充。

这本最新书是对亚利桑那州采矿遗产文献和无与伦比的照片集的及时而引人注目的补充。这本书结合了大量的书面文章和汉考克对比斯比的可视化的丰富收藏，并辅以该镇及其矿山早期图像的重印。他的方法与大多数历史学家的方法不同：他提供了一系列书面文章，这些文章因比斯比的历史和当代图像的强大摄影组合而变得生动活泼，其中有几张现代照片是在 19 世纪的同一地点拍摄的。其结果是对该镇采矿历史的视觉再现，现在以其艺术家和反文化而闻名。这本引人入胜的照片集和背景描述构成了他对 1917 年采矿大罢工及其后果的描述的背景。 [结束第397页]

汉考克在他的文章中追溯了比斯比这座以铜开采为基础的城镇的悠久历史。它将矿业新兴城市的过度行为与大量非白人和移民劳动力的廉价劳动力维持企业利润机制时预期的社会分裂结合在一起。我必须补充一点，他的照片和他所采用的相应历史叙述中出现了美国西部界限分明的阶级结构的许多图像。汉考克巧妙地将早期比斯比社会和采矿基础设施（以及由此带来的对自然景观的暴力）的图像与城市的当代艺术文化和反文化并置。他还提醒我们，比斯比实际上是一个边境城镇，这是一个经常被忽视的地理奇点。因此，它与附近的卡纳尼亚和纳科扎里墨西哥铜矿有着深厚的历史联系，这些铜矿本身就是劳资之间重大且持续的冲突的​​场所。

该地区矿体的特殊地理位置要求比斯比的住宅和企业位于骡子山两侧以及沿着城镇侧面的河谷。维吉尔特别喜欢在城市陡峭的街道上行走，吸收过去与现在的奇特而有效的结合。正如他所说，“漫步比斯比不仅仅是一次历史之旅，更是一次感官和精神之旅。”这概括了他的书的主题。

19世纪末20世纪初的比斯比社会以兄弟组织为主。最引人注目的是那些准秘密的“兄弟会”。其中包括（但不限于）社会商业和金融界的后裔。最著名的组织仅限于白人男性，尽管有些组织包括妇女的辅助和附属组织，其作用是支持兄弟组织的工作。比斯比社会中其他权力较小的部分也有“兄弟般的”关系。组织，但与白人和商业主导的兄弟会相比，他们的影响力就显得苍白无力了。汉考克收集了一系列精彩的白人绅士肖像画，这些肖像画通常都穿着他们最好的兄弟服装，现在看来有一种奇怪的贵族气派。他通过将这些社会上普遍存在的强大群体与城市的发展和比斯比的经济政治联系起来，做出了令人钦佩的服务……