The prototypical American vacationland, Niagara Falls has been popular with honeymooners and families for more than a century. The image of its cascading white water was made familiar in part through postcards, which in turn helped to transform this natural wonder into a tourist destination. Zoe Leonard’s You see I am here after all brings together thousands of these postcard images of the “great cataract,” from the early 1900s through the 1950s. This grand accumulation of viewpoints, organized by Leonard taxonomically in accordance with their positions along the perimeter of the panoramic site, brings up issues as diverse as human interventions with nature and the function of landscape in inventing American historical narratives, as well as the technological evolution of image reproduction and dissemination.
