Iowa’s Rochester Cemetery is one of the most unusual and biodiverse prairies left in America, boasting more than 400 species of plants—337 of them native to the region—on its thirteen-and-a-half acres. Among them are fifteen massive white oaks that stood watch as the surrounding landscape was converted into farmland after Euro-American settlers arrived in the 1830s. The cemetery is the last resting place of these pioneers and their descendants, down to the present. Graves and wildflowers are scattered across the hills that geologists consider sand dunes; these are held in place by the deep roots of the plants and people.    Pioneer cemeteries have been recognized as important prairie remnants and seed banks ever since Aldo Leopold, another Iowa native, called attention to them in his landmark essays of the 1940s, as he developed the new field of ecological restoration. At Rochester Cemetery, the drama of the prairie’s survival continues to this day, in a controversy that flares up as reliably as spring’s shooting stars. To botanists across the country, this place is a pilgrimage site. To local residents, it is either a source of pride or a shameful weed lot (some feel regular mowing would show more respect for the dead). To the photographer and writer Stephen Longmire, it is a place where the stories of the rural Midwest are written on the land—a long exposure, extending back to the days when Meskwaki Indians camped nearby and wildfire held back the forest.    In the creative tension between people and place, Rochester’s prairie holds its native ground. Historic cemetery plantings grow wild among the native wildflowers, and bright plastic flowers decorate modern graves. In compelling photographs and prose, Longmire shows this patch of original Iowa to be a living record of all the land’s uses since its settlement.

Life and Death on the Prairie

Arts & Photography

Longmire, Stephen

Photography & Video

George F. Thompson Publishing

For 300 years, Sag Harbor has been a prism reflecting facets of American history, from its heyday as a whaling port worthy of mention in Moby-Dick, to a factory town shipping out Bulova watches to its latest reincarnation, as an alternative retreat to the exclusive Hamptons. Stephen Longmire explores its many stories in Keeping Time in Sag Harbor.        Sag Harbor’s architecture encompasses buildings from the American Revolution to the present, including the stately eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mansions lining “Captains Row” and public buildings such as the early Custom House. The work to protect this architecture in the face of booming real estate development is at the heart of Longmire’s account. Archival images and Longmire’s own color photographs are interspersed with interviews with new and old residents, and together they reveal the evolving character of the village, as the book charts how Sag Harbor has struggled to retain its identity while learning to sustain itself on tourism. Keeping Time in Sag Harbor is an intimate portrait of a historic American village that stands as an example of the challenge facing American communities from Santa Fe to South Beach.

Keeping Time in Sag Harbor (Center for American Places - Center Books on American Places)

Individual Artists

Center for American Places

For 300 years, Sag Harbor has been a prism reflecting facets of American history, from its heyday as a whaling port worthy of mention in Moby-Dick, to a factory town shipping out Bulova watches to its latest reincarnation, as an alternative retreat to the exclusive Hamptons. Stephen Longmire explores its many stories in Keeping Time in Sag Harbor. Sag Harbor’s architecture encompasses buildings from the American Revolution to the present, including the stately eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mansions lining “Captains Row” and public buildings such as the early Custom House. The work to protect this architecture in the face of booming real estate development is at the heart of Longmire’s account. Archival images and Longmire’s own color photographs are interspersed with interviews with new and old residents, and together they reveal the evolving character of the village, as the book charts how Sag Harbor has struggled to retain its identity while learning to sustain itself on tourism. Keeping Time in Sag Harbor is an intimate portrait of a historic American village that stands as an example of the challenge facing American communities from Santa Fe to South Beach.

Keeping Time in Sag Harbor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Longmire, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Longmire, Stephen

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Longmire, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Life and Death on the Prairie

Keeping Time in Sag Harbor (Center for American Places - Center Books on American Places)

Keeping Time in Sag Harbor