The Mississippi: A Visual Biography

From the University of Missouri Press

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“As with every book I’ve seen in which Quinta Scott is involved, The Mississippi: A Visual Biography combines an in-depth, accurate, and revealing description of its subject with magnificent photographs that take you deeper into the subject than any text.” –John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America.

“Great book and great blog – thanks for the first book I have seen that addresses the contemporary river, headwaters to gulf.”

Dan McGuiness, Audubon, St. Paul, Minnesota

Ever since I picked up a camera and said I was going to be a photographer, I have wanted to do a Mississippi River project.

In 1991 on a trip down Mississippi Highway 1, a came across an old oxbow of the Mississippi, stepped in a fire ant nest, made a photograph, and found my Mississippi River project. I would document wetlands the Mississippi created as it meandered across its floodplain from the Source to the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

The introductory text to 200 photographs documents how the river was formed by glacial action, what we have done to change it, and how we are trying to restore it.

The captions to the images fit each place photographed into this context.