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454Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril to New York and enrolled in the Clarence H. White School of Photography, whose former students included such noted photographers as Margaret BourkeWhite and Dorothea Lange. There, dirough the project method of instruction, she mastered die fundamental principles of technique, and in 1935 she returned to Texas in time to join in promotional efforts well underway for the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. In her months-long assignment to document die state photographically, Smith traveled to all its regions, providing dramatic images of everyday Texas that national publications and focused marketing strategies soon spread widely. In the process, she effectively compiled die most extensive visual record of the state to that time. In her treatment of Smith, author Baker appropriately chose (with a few minor exceptions) to separate the photographer's life history from the abundance of large-format photos included in the book, allowing die images to speak for themselves, which they do effectively. Readers will appreciate die broad range of Smith's work diat includes layered complexities ("Crowd scene at Arlington Downs. Arlington, Texas," p. 83); dramatic simplicity ("Peppers. East Texas," p. 181); stark contrasts ("Workmen sitting on the struts of an oil derrick. East Texas," p. 103); artistic patterning (Orange grove. Rio Grande Valley," p. 149); architectural detailing (Ysleta Mission. El Paso, Texas," p. 163); and, enduring human elements ("Loading timber. Piney Woods, Texas," page 189). The collection is evocative of and complementary to works of other celebrated photographers of the New Deal era. A TexasJourney is a compelling study of a significant artist, whose career and influence spread well beyond her centennial assignment. It gives readers an opportunity to appreciate how the cultural landscape of Texas influenced her work and how she in turn used her remarkable talents and unique perspectives to share her gratitude widi the world. PflugervilleDan K. Utley The Orphans' Nine Commandments: A Memoir. By William Roger Holman. Foreward by Ted Blevins. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2007) In May 1932, Anna Bechan packed her little boy's clothing in a cardboard box, took him by die hand and boarded an Oklahoma City trolley. Around twilight , she led him through the doors of the Oklahoma Society for the Friendless and left him there. He never saw her again. With this, six-year-old Roger Bechan stepped into a new world: one where adults could not be trusted and odier children were not always allies; where he was a commodity to be sold by his caretaker; where minor acts of rebellion were met with corporal punishment or abandonment; and where nobody would tell him about his own past or explain how he came to be in his situation. Even his name was not his own. Over his five years in institutional and foster care placements, Roger Bechan was alternately known as Bill Minter, Billy Hardt, Will Rogers, Roger Beacham, and finally, William Roger Holman, the name he goes by today. Now in his early eighties, Holman has chronicled his childhood in 20ogBook Reviews455 a new autobiography, The Orphans' Nine Commandments. (The tide derives from a decision made by him and his friends that they could live by all the Commandments except the fifth: to honor dieir modiers and fathers.) Holman would learn diat he was not the child of divorce, as he had always believed, but illegitimate. Why his mother had chosen to abandon him was never clear. Like many parents during die Great Depression, she simply may not have been able to afford his care. In 1933, die number of children living in American orphanages reached a record high of 150,000. Like many of diem, he became a form of property to be sold to desperate couples looking for children; his stateappointed guardian collected hundreds of dollars in fees from foster placements over the years. Writing from the perspective of a young boy, Holman does not dwell on the socioeconomics of the times. The reasons for his plight mattered little to the child. Holman is careful to balance the bitter with the sweet. Interspersed with moments of neglect and outright abuse are memories of boyhood escapades and moments of love and kindness from some of his foster families...

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